[mickeyp]

No the insight here is that you went _back_ and got your PhD with years of experience building professional software.

Expecting a 20-year old undergrad or a 23-year old postgrad to do as well as someone who left and came back to uni to finish their degree(s) is... uncharitable.

[nsagent]

I became lead of that MMORTS within 4yrs of starting my career. I've worked with lots of PhD students who came back after more than 5 years working in big tech; not one had the experience and abilities I did. I've also worked with fresh grads in games who were miles ahead of 99% of the software engineers and PhDs I've encountered in my time.

Again, I've also run into equally talented fresh grads in big tech, but they were much more rare.

Take my anecdotes as you will.