As someone who occasionally hires, a masters doesn't really show much in terms of talent, but it does sometimes show a level of specialization. And, there are

As someone who occasionally hires, a masters doesn't really show much in terms of talent, but it does sometimes show a level of specialization. And, there are times when I need a specialist (e.g. image processing, feature analysis, statistics, etc.). But, generally, I don't need a lot of specialists. Also, there seem to be two types of people who go for masters. There are those that really love their particular specialty, and are willing to sacrifice significant opportunity costs to master it. I respect that group. And, then there are those that think that a masters will get them more pay, but who also had calculated that they couldn't increase their pay the hard way (e.g. working for it). I'm wary of the that group. Also, when hiring a specialist, I don't want one who has focused on topics that any good developer with a B.S. can research independently: operating systems, languages, data structures, algorithms. I want one with a particular domain specialty - someone who can read recent research papers, and implement it.