I’ve worked with both (I personally have an unrelated BS and an MS in SWE, which I used purely to get my foot in the door – it worked), and IMO if someone has a

I’ve worked with both (I personally have an unrelated BS and an MS in SWE, which I used purely to get my foot in the door – it worked), and IMO if someone has a BS, not MS, there’s a decent chance they at least understand DS&A, probably took an OS course, etc. That said, I have also worked with brilliant people who had no formal education in the subject whatsoever, they just really, really liked it. I’m biased towards ops because that’s what I do and like, but at least in that field, the single biggest green flag I’ve found is whether or not someone has a homelab. People can cry all they want about “penalizing people for having hobbies outside of their job,” but it’s pretty obvious that if you spend more time doing something – even moreso if you enjoy it – you will learn it at a much faster rate than someone who only does it during business hours.