Absolutely possible. The difference might be that PhDs don't conventionally have the 'downward' path available. They have a lower bound to the career roles they

Absolutely possible. The difference might be that PhDs don't conventionally have the 'downward' path available. They have a lower bound to the career roles they can take up. You may well violate that bound and do more 'line worker' type roles, but that'll get funny looks, might actually be harder to get into with the title (some people might even conceal it for such reasons) and the PhD would have been largely wasted, career-advancement speaking. For a software developer with a regular STEM MSc, there is more of an upper, less of a lower bound, but I'm not planning on testing out those upper boundaries (like, can you rise to C-level of a large corporation? Sure can, but a PhD makes it much easier where I'm from).