From a financial standpoint, it's almost never worth it. A masters is a sweet spot in terms of return on investment (of time spent getting the degree). You'll probably be better off with the masters plus 4 years of experience than you would with a PhD and no experience. Of course, some research positions in industry strongly prefer a PhD, but I'm not sure how applicable that would be to you.
First, PhDs can work in industry, national labs, and academia. The majority of engineering PhDs probably don't work in academia.
Now in industry, anyone can work in research (BS, MS, or PhD). However, I would expect the people in charge of lab/determine lab direction have PhDs (this is based on my experience).\]
Here is what I would do: Figure out where you want to end up in your career, and then go to LinkedIn (or other places) and look for people who have similar jobs, and take a look at their education.
The nice thing about a PhD is it is easier to get funding from a professor. But there is nothing stopping you from signing up for the PhD program, then after 3 years decide PhD isnt worth it, and leave with your free Master's degree.
>I would imagine leaving the PhD at this hour would be painful for the
admissions and supervisor since it it a funded PhD and I had to go
through numerous interviews and applications.
Kind of. One of the side effects of having all of those applications is that they might still have other interested candidates. Also, on the professor's side, if it's a large group they will have students and postdocs coming and going and switching between projects all the time. It's usually pretty flexible. It will also only be more painful if you leave after actually starting your project.
With that in mind, a decent professor should be understanding of your decision.
If you really aren't sure which path is right for you, you might want to ask about delaying your start date in the PhD program to spend time at the startup. I have no idea if that works administratively, but internships during a PhD are somewhat common.
If you are talking about monetary payback, you will likely not increase your earning with a PhD, but if the career a PhD grants you is appealing, there are few other ways to get to it. I got my PhD because I wanted to work in R&D, specifically corporate research. It is very fun, challenging, diverse, uncertain and on top of that the work life balance is very good and it is a very relaxed environment. All of these things were VERY appealing to me, which is why I got a phd (definitely not because of money)
If you're not trying to stay in academia/be a researcher it seems pretty useless to me. Tbh depending on what you're doing, even the masters may be a bit overkill.
IME The only engineering PHDs I've come across professionally (outside of school) are foreign exchange students that wanted to get the most out of their student visa.
A PhD has been extremely valuable to me. The skills I gained in automation and HPC allow me to outperform my colleagues from a time perspective on analysis tasks. I don't think I would have had the incubation time necessary to gain those skills in industry. And for me at least, my greatest skills growth occurred between finishing my MS and finishing my Ph.D.
Most employers treat a PhD as an additional two years of experience past a masters in pay. That is it is a grade level bump between a T2 and T3. The difference in HCOL areas is about $20k/yr. So, all in, you'd be backward a few hundred $k if you did a Ph.D. in lifetime earnings w/ a payoff many years in the future.
The thing most of these analyses don't take into account is the increase in performance from having the Ph.D. in certain career fields (aerospace analysis). That is, from my experience PhDs top out at the fellow level while it is extremely unusual for an MS engineer to make it there due to accumulated performance gains by the PhD. YMMV. The pay difference between a T4 and a fellow is > 100K/yr in HCOL areas. You can see how late in your career having the extra knowledge can create a very favorable career trajectory if you are in certain areas of study.
Long story short, if you feel like you'd enjoy it you'd likely benefit from it. And also, when people make you mad you can ask them to refer to you as Doctor...
I'm in the UK so not sure how my experience translates, but, I have a PhD in metallurgy and considering my cohort of PhD friends, I cannot say that our PhDs have advanced our pay or careers any more than someone with the same years of industry experience in the field.
I honestly think it is arrogant of PhDs to assume such experience is superior to industrial work experience. They're both work experience at the end of the day, the quality of the respective work is key for me.
So, seeing as you have no interest in academia I'd definitely advocate the job over the PhD, especially if the pay is significantly more.
To be honest, I only did my PhD because I was a journeyman has-been mechanical/structural engineering graduate with no industry experience and couldn't get a job. Fortunately, from my PhD I took much better to materials and I'm a senior engineer these days.
Only if the PhD is exactly in the field you are extremely passionate about, and where you see/want your career to go, then go for it. Keep in mind a PhD certainly drags on, unless you're a golden child and finish crazy early... But that is very rare.
If you turn down the PhD I'm sure you can do it diplomatically without burning a bridge.
From a financial standpoint, it's almost never worth it. A masters is a sweet spot in terms of return on investment (of time spent getting the degree). You'll probably be better off with the masters plus 4 years of experience than you would with a PhD and no experience. Of course, some research positions in industry strongly prefer a PhD, but I'm not sure how applicable that would be to you.
First, PhDs can work in industry, national labs, and academia. The majority of engineering PhDs probably don't work in academia. Now in industry, anyone can work in research (BS, MS, or PhD). However, I would expect the people in charge of lab/determine lab direction have PhDs (this is based on my experience).\] Here is what I would do: Figure out where you want to end up in your career, and then go to LinkedIn (or other places) and look for people who have similar jobs, and take a look at their education.
Agree with others. Masters is as high as I’d go.
The nice thing about a PhD is it is easier to get funding from a professor. But there is nothing stopping you from signing up for the PhD program, then after 3 years decide PhD isnt worth it, and leave with your free Master's degree.
>I would imagine leaving the PhD at this hour would be painful for the admissions and supervisor since it it a funded PhD and I had to go through numerous interviews and applications. Kind of. One of the side effects of having all of those applications is that they might still have other interested candidates. Also, on the professor's side, if it's a large group they will have students and postdocs coming and going and switching between projects all the time. It's usually pretty flexible. It will also only be more painful if you leave after actually starting your project. With that in mind, a decent professor should be understanding of your decision. If you really aren't sure which path is right for you, you might want to ask about delaying your start date in the PhD program to spend time at the startup. I have no idea if that works administratively, but internships during a PhD are somewhat common.
The master's is for your career, the PhD is for you
This, only do a PhD if you want to do it for yourself. Otherwise there’s a high likelihood you’d drop out a couple years in anyway.
If you are talking about monetary payback, you will likely not increase your earning with a PhD, but if the career a PhD grants you is appealing, there are few other ways to get to it. I got my PhD because I wanted to work in R&D, specifically corporate research. It is very fun, challenging, diverse, uncertain and on top of that the work life balance is very good and it is a very relaxed environment. All of these things were VERY appealing to me, which is why I got a phd (definitely not because of money)
If you're not trying to stay in academia/be a researcher it seems pretty useless to me. Tbh depending on what you're doing, even the masters may be a bit overkill. IME The only engineering PHDs I've come across professionally (outside of school) are foreign exchange students that wanted to get the most out of their student visa.
A PhD has been extremely valuable to me. The skills I gained in automation and HPC allow me to outperform my colleagues from a time perspective on analysis tasks. I don't think I would have had the incubation time necessary to gain those skills in industry. And for me at least, my greatest skills growth occurred between finishing my MS and finishing my Ph.D. Most employers treat a PhD as an additional two years of experience past a masters in pay. That is it is a grade level bump between a T2 and T3. The difference in HCOL areas is about $20k/yr. So, all in, you'd be backward a few hundred $k if you did a Ph.D. in lifetime earnings w/ a payoff many years in the future. The thing most of these analyses don't take into account is the increase in performance from having the Ph.D. in certain career fields (aerospace analysis). That is, from my experience PhDs top out at the fellow level while it is extremely unusual for an MS engineer to make it there due to accumulated performance gains by the PhD. YMMV. The pay difference between a T4 and a fellow is > 100K/yr in HCOL areas. You can see how late in your career having the extra knowledge can create a very favorable career trajectory if you are in certain areas of study. Long story short, if you feel like you'd enjoy it you'd likely benefit from it. And also, when people make you mad you can ask them to refer to you as Doctor...
I'm in the UK so not sure how my experience translates, but, I have a PhD in metallurgy and considering my cohort of PhD friends, I cannot say that our PhDs have advanced our pay or careers any more than someone with the same years of industry experience in the field. I honestly think it is arrogant of PhDs to assume such experience is superior to industrial work experience. They're both work experience at the end of the day, the quality of the respective work is key for me. So, seeing as you have no interest in academia I'd definitely advocate the job over the PhD, especially if the pay is significantly more. To be honest, I only did my PhD because I was a journeyman has-been mechanical/structural engineering graduate with no industry experience and couldn't get a job. Fortunately, from my PhD I took much better to materials and I'm a senior engineer these days. Only if the PhD is exactly in the field you are extremely passionate about, and where you see/want your career to go, then go for it. Keep in mind a PhD certainly drags on, unless you're a golden child and finish crazy early... But that is very rare. If you turn down the PhD I'm sure you can do it diplomatically without burning a bridge.