As someone who has been involved in hiring (and sometimes firing) developers for a few decades now, I have come to the conclusion whatever value advanced degree

As someone who has been involved in hiring (and sometimes firing) developers for a few decades now, I have come to the conclusion whatever value advanced degrees in CS have for the recipient doesn't translate into making him a more productive coder. In fact, these individuals tend to get tangled up in trying to zero in on the best solution for problems instead of the "good enough" solution that would have taken a fraction of the time. We don't pay extra for advanced CS degrees. In fact, we prefer to hire people with EE, physics, and math degrees over CS in general.