[tinyhouse]

A postdoc is not a PhD but it can also be competitive in good places. Very hard to skip that step these days unless you're a superstar, even in CS. But it doesn't really matter. Are you trying to discredit him in some way? It's actually even more impressive he got to where he got without a degree from a top school. He needed to work harder than others.

[ok123456]

His connections (his dad is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering) had more to do with that than hard work.

Getting out of purgatory was also competitive.