I am personally wary of folks with PhDs. It's certainly not a reason to reject an application, but I don't really consider a positive, either (for a general sof

I am personally wary of folks with PhDs. It's certainly not a reason to reject an application, but I don't really consider a positive, either (for a general software engineer - if I need a systems engineer and you've been doing systems engineering research, then different story). It's just a completely different way of thinking about problems and I have had trouble with folks who weren't able to change their mode of thinking. If I was hiring a researcher, I wouldn't consider 5 years of coding at tiny startups to be an advantage. It's really the same thing - demonstrated skills at a related, but somewhat different enterprise.