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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

Is that really the case for people in tech though - that they could get a step increase of over 10K by pursuing an MBA instead of getting experience at $latest_tech_fad?

After staying at one job for way too long 10 years ago, I’ve hopped jobs 4 times, pursuing that strategy (and learning about modern architecture) and have seen jumps of $7K, $10K, $25K, and $20K. Unless the market sours, I should be able to put together a resume and skillset to get another $25K bump as a consultant within the next 3 years.

This isn’t in Silicon Valley, NY, or DC.

I can’t see an MBA helping.

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Anecdote: was in software, went to top-10-ish MBA school, went back to software industry with higher salary and have not done very badly since. But was it higher than I would have been making in 2 years without going to school? Impossible to know. Is my subsequent trajectory steeper enough to make up for the costs? Impossible to know.

I do feel it’s nice to have that base business, accounting, finance, general management knowledge as a foundation to use to understand things, but is it $150k + $opportunity cost of 2 years worth of education? Not sure...

If you are spending $150K on an MBA, you are spending way too much. In Louisiana, LSU's Executive MBA costs under $60K including all books and meals during the program. If you go Southeastern Louisiana University, their Executive MBA program costs around $20K with the same things included. I went to Southeastern for mine, and I found it very useful in moving into the management chain inside of IT.

Then again, as someone above pointed out, I knew why I was getting an MBA. I can teach myself tech, but some of the business aspects are a pain to teach myself so I paid someone else to teach me those.

Yes, but from what others have said, if you are getting an MBA for the salary increase and not just to learn, getting an MBA from a non top tier school isn't really worth it if you are already in a high paying field.

In the parent's case, it probably made sense though. He was looking to get into management with an eMBA program with (I'm assuming) a school in the state that's probably well-represented at the company. A degree from a regional school is probably going to be less useful in another part of the country and/or for a less well-defined purpose.

Would you make that kind of decision with only an eye toward your current company or the market in general?

It depends? If there's an immediate concrete benefit and they're planning to stay regional anyway? Possibly/probably? And a lot of people actually stay with an employer for a significant length of time. And even just using as a near-term/midterm stepping stone may pay benefits down the road beyond the degree itself.

I tend to think personally that law and MBA grad degrees do generally tilt toward benefiting top schools but I'd never suggest that was an ironclad rule.

The next question is, how long does the affect of the college you attend vs. experience matter with an MBA?

For software development, from personal experience of going to an unknown state school in the mid 90s, I was just as competitive with people coming from well known schools within three or four years. It probably would have helped with me landing that first job.

Again, I think it depends. My MBA definitely played into my first job after; the process started with an on-campus interview. I doubt the school (or probably even that I had an MBA) made a bit of difference after that but then I was in that job for 13 years and my subsequent jobs weren't even business roles per se. I think the background was useful but it didn't matter from a hiring perspective if I had a degree from X school or not.

In my current job, to the degree my educational pedigree made any difference at all, it was my undergrad because that's where my hiring manager went. However, I'm sure there are many cases where business school networks associated with top schools can be important.

not to sound elitist, but MBAs are usually only worth it if its a Top25

I posted previously that I took all of the classes to get an MBA but ended up with slightly less than 3.0. I looked at the salary projections of just staying in tech and keeping my skills relevant and worrying about an MBA from a non top 25 school and it wasn’t worth worrying about the degree.

I did learn a lot that helped me years later.

As I said in another post, I was an MBA dropout but I did learn a lot. I’m not sure how much that knowledge has helped me in my career, but it has helped me communicate with CxOs during the second part of my career without looking like a deer in headlights when they started talking about the business end of things.

If you are technical then no, an MBA is not designed to help. If the consulting is management consulting then it might help at first.

I disagree. If you are building business software, it is very helpful even as a developer.

To add to that value, if you become a team lead and have management responsibilities or have to manage budgets, it becomes even more helpful.

Will you be building “business software” for enough of your career to make it worthwhile? I’ve had to learn enough about plenty of verticals over the years to build software. We hire/contract the experts if they don’t already work for us.

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