| My raw thoughts phd in systems engineering is inherently unnecessary unless you want to spend time in academia. This is my opinion with first hand experience working on a phD and working in a FAANG. If you want to go deep into systems and make something at it - I would recommend a PhD in.a top tier university like Berkeley otherwise it's not worth leaving your job. A phd from a top tier university is required for a good academic career. If it's just interesting work-- You can work on far more interesting systems work if you navigate to the right team in google for example. PhD is a 5 year ish commitment and it's better to do it early in your life if you want to go to academia. PhD dropout rates are also high, it's okay here too there's a lot that you learn anyway and the FAANG company is not going anywhere :). They're always happy to have you back... I would wrap this up by reading this article by Prof. DesJardin
How to be a good graduate student https://heibeck.freeshell.org/Grad_Advice/how2b/how.2b.html Hope this helps |
I was considering a PhD in ETH or EPFL. Going deep is mostly what I've been thinking. Actually getting an understanding and contributing to the field is more important to me than just working on something more interesting. My current job is already on something interesting but the actual work I end up doing is on the surface level, often avoiding any kind of innovation to minimize the risk. The time I can spend on learning is also way more limited than what I could get if I was doing dedicated research.
In the end, I'm not sure if I want to end up in academia. It's hard to know if something is a fit without trying. The article you linked is a very helpful sample of what to expect.