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So it depends on your goals and the type of work you want to do. I kind of stumbled into Data Science / AI research (came from a Creative Writing background). After spending about 4 years in industry, I decided to go back and pursue a PhD for a mixture of reasons. If you want a research job at a large tech company or top research institute, you'll need a PhD and a history of publications. That being said, I've found there are opportunities for you be successful and work on interesting problems if you're willing to be creative and flexible. In larger organizations my experience has been variable. When I was working at Harvard (doing institutional research which was data science for higher ed policy and strategy), my ceiling was definitely capped. There was a ridiculous amount of institutional politics and having a PhD was required for many opportunities. In contrast at Liberty Mutual (large insurance company), I found you could find your way into a data science role and follow traditional ladders for career advancement. A PhD was nice but not necessary. The downside was that your work was very confined, there was massive layers of middle management and bureaucracy, and other challenges. But if that environment was good for you, you could definitely be successful. I also a had brief stint working as a technical project manager at a AI research institute (Allen AI). There having a PhD was definitely needed to do research. There were research engineer positions, which depending on the research group, could have you implement models, but having a phd was required to actual research. I ultimately found my sweet spot working a early stage startups. I had the agency and autonomy of researcher at say Google Brain or Facebook, the ability to work on cutting edge problems, and the ability to get involved in other aspects of the business as well. The obvious downside is that startups are volatile (the first one I was at went down under) and while my compensation is more than comfortable (and even better than when I was at Harvard) its nowhere near the compensation of large tech companies or corporations. If you're interested in publishing, it's also a bit tricky to balance your work and carve time to do publishable research. Ultimately, I found work at at the start-up stage was perfect for me but was a bit unsustainable long term. Ultimately, my choice to go back to grad school for my phd was for mixture of reasons. Personally, I wanted the space and time to build a strong foundation in theory (having come from an applied background), have the ability to do pure research, and ideally put myself in a situation down the line to be competitive for research position at a larger tech company or research institute. A PhD is useful really for two things, one is the credential and two is the time it provides you to build up a publication history and work on a particular problem. |