If you want to get more advanced knowledge then independent study will be way more efficient use of your time. Masters degree isn't all that advanced (after 8 y

If you want to get more advanced knowledge then independent study will be way more efficient use of your time. Masters degree isn't all that advanced (after 8 years of programming you should know much more than a masters degree can provide) and in addition to teaching stuff you might be interested in, there's also a lot of wasted time on things that are not very interesting (in general and/or to you). Not to mention massive cost (you not only have to pay the tuition but also are not being paid for doing software work). If you want more recognition, blog about technical topics and create useful open-source projects. I can tell you that no company ever has contacted me after seeing that I have MS in CS. That's not indicative of anything and after few years of professional experience, you're judged on your past performance and not your degree. Plenty of companies contacted me offering job interviews after seeing my open source work that I wrote about on my blog.