[usgroup]

If you want to know for real in a way that’s relevant to your life just try and apply for a few quant positions right now with what you have. Chase for feedback and investigate for yourself whether your education level was a factor. This will take you very little time and give you intel worth a damn.

In considering phd you need to think about the market as it’s likely to be in 3 years time rather than as it is now. In my opinion, the level of qualification for quant jobs will decrease with demand so if your talking about ML applied to industry then a PhD is a poor future investment unless you’re a beast amongst beasts. As another poster said a masters is a much better optimisation for time spent vs salary and it’s also likely where most jobs preferring phds today will be at in terms of requirements in 3 years time.