5 ms·
I was in civil service for the DoD including time as a system engineer for NAVAIR at Pax River from 2012-2017. I had an undergrad degree in MechEng and finished
by cgearhart 8y ago
I was in civil service for the DoD including time as a system engineer for NAVAIR at Pax River from 2012-2017. I had an undergrad degree in MechEng and finished an MSCS in 2016 at age 33. In 2017 I moved to SV and last week I started a new job as an ML engineer at a FAANG company. I don’t know if a second BS is better/worse than MS, but it is definitely possible to switch.
So far, I feel conspicuously older than most folks in my group, and I’ve effectively rebooted my career so I don’t have the same seniority and professional network I had in civil service. I worked around the middle-aged junior problem by taking small contract remote work at below my normal pay rate to bank some experience. I’m still comparatively inexperienced (and the offers I get reflect that), but I’m not being paid like a new grad or anything, so I feel like I have time to work up.
- QuotedForTruth 8y agoWow. Thats a pretty parallel path. Thanks for replying. I thought about doing an MS but didn't feel qualified since I hadn't covered much in undergrad and it was so long ago. I've thought about switching now that I've taken a significant amount of the CS core curriculum, but it would add an additional year at least to this whole process. How did you go about getting the contract work? A service like upwork or similar?
- cgearhart 8y agoI took a side-gig as a TA in grad school and eventually that led to networking that connected me to some small-scale remote work opportunities. I’d be willing to try something like upwork these days though.