I had a dream of wanting to start a company one day and was interested in a more holistic understanding of the business side of things. I thought that it would add some credibility when speaking with business types but also uncover ideas to base the company on.
Personally, for me, I found it useful but not for the reasons of knowledge. The knowledge was good but the program helped to sharpen my speaking and thinking skills. It also broadened my mind to different perspectives - that the tech world that I come from is quite different to people outside of industry.
The classes and sessions have also made me think further and deeper about business, culture and management beyond the usual.
It also made me more disciplined - focus on the business not the product and technology. Used to waste countless hours building, researching with not much to show for.
It’s also given some confidence to speak to business types and connect with them at a deeper level while introducing technology to them.
You can most definitely fallback as an engineer but why are you thinking of an MBA in the first place? What’s your goal for pursuing one?
The reason I’m considering it is because I’m trying to envision myself in 10-20 years and thinking who I would be happy to be.
Right now, I don’t believe what would make me happy is to be a principal/staff engineer somewhere necessarily.
Don’t get me wrong, I love programming, but I see it as me getting paid to solve problems, and not getting paid to write good code, and I think there are other ways to solve those problems. For example, I think the biggest problems in my organization are managerial and organizational rather than technical, and I feel like the type of training that would come with an MBA can help one solve those issues, including communication, planning, product validation, people management, etc.
That said, my entire reporting chain up to and including the CEO doesn’t have an MBA, so it’s not like it’s a prerequisite.
The other path I’m considering is an MS in CS/SE because while I’ve been an engineer for a few years, my undergrad is in Mathematics, and I’m worried it’ll be a limiter later on to not have a CS degree, but also only a BS.
First off, kudos to you for looking ahead. It’s one of the things that’s really “scared” me into action. It’s funny because I went through the same thought process as you are going through now.
I was a decent enough software engineer and while I love to build things, I felt there was more.
Almost all company problems tend to be managerial and organisational rather than technical, which is a fascinating discussion in my MBA classes. You will definitely get the space and time to think about these things and your theories on how to solve them.
However, I will say that to solve those problems, you have everything you need today. Your knowledge, wisdom and experience can help guide you but fundamentally, these problems touch the aspect of humans behaviour. A great book is “How to win friends and influence people” - I’m recommending it not to influence anyone but it’s a good eye opener to human behaviour. The MBA will help with theories but it’s not fact of course.
I’ve also thought about an MS in CS for fears of being limited in the future as well but will respond back when I have more time. Or if you’d like we can have a chat over Skype or email.
Besides knowledge, I gained a lot of insight about myself, and also learned quite a bit about entrepreneurship (more in terms of state of mind than actual knowledge). And made a lot of connections and friends in a lot of different fields (e.g. a vet, an airline pilot, a board member in a very large corporation, a few startup founders, a tax attorney...).
Ironically, the EMBA also convinced me that I'm much happier in technical roles, and gave me the confidence to go for it. I'm currently the CTO of a startup and most of what I learned during the EMBA is of marginal usefulness to me, except the stuff about entrepreneurship. But I wouldn't be in my current job without the EMBA.
Agreed - I wouldn't be where I am today without it either.
I think the biggest misconception about an MBA is the actual textbook education but I've heard many CEO/CTOs make the same statement - helped them decide their career path and boost their confidence plus made a lot of friends across many different industries.