Hi! I am about to end a two year contract working overseas, and I don’t love my current line of work. I’ve been teaching myself python, django, javascript, html, css etc with some CS fundamentals, algorithms on firecode.io and a few lessons on http://www.fast.ai for fun for the past two years.<p>I’m returning to the states in about a month and I’m trying to decide if I should just look for junior dev jobs and get some hard experience, or if I should look into getting a masters in CS, or a masters in ML .<p>In terms of future long term job security, earnings, etc, which of the three options would you recommend?<p>FYI, I’m a 27 year-old male who will probably be moving back to the Austin, TX area.
I have friends at the code camp, BS, MS, and PhD level; PhD enables you to go into research or stay in academia, but my buddies with Masters really haven't seen any benefit. They're still competing for the same jobs as the BS folks: the degree gets you an interview, but after that nobody cares what your degree is or where it's from.<p>Disclamer: this is my experience in a secondary market, SF might be different.
Get a job. A master's degree in CS will help to augment your experience in the industry - it won't obviate it. I would recommend taking a look at Georgia Tech's OMSCS program, which (for non-CS undegrads like myself), necessitates some number of years of professional software engineering experience.
Is there a specific topic you would like to work in but don't feel comfortable enough in? If so: a Masters in that direction might be wise. Doing a Masters just for the title doesn't add much.