[lonesword]

I am in a similar situation as you - I'm currently doing my Msc (Computer Science, in Germany) and cannot decide whether I would want to continue to a Phd or head back to the industry. However, I had worked 3 years in the industry _before_ I enrolled for the current masters program, and that gave me a lot of perspective. Since you mentioned this:

> I don't have industry experience and I don't really know how any of this stuff plays out. I'm worried that if I chose to forego the PhD, I'll really regret it in a number of years. I'm afraid I won't be able to find interesting work with just a MSc, and I'm really afraid of getting a boring software engineering gig.

The trick is to find an engineering job in a domain/problem that you are interested in. I would really recommend that you spend a few years in the industry, since my time as a professional really really helped me in the long run. I am able to prioritize things faster, and meta-learnings like "Validate your hypothesis before investing resources" are true in both academia and industry. It would also be a good opportunity to gain some software engineering skills (academia has a bad rep when it comes to code quality) and some people skills (eg: how to do code reviews without sounding like a jerk). Also, the money would really cushion the blow if you end up deciding to do a PhD later after all.