It took me till my late 30's to realize this is the power of a graduate degree. There are lots of people out there who understand programming, and there's a tier of programmers who understand research as a fundamental part of it.

You don't need a graduate degree to understand it, but conveying that you understand it on your resume is hard to do in any universally meaningful way without that degree. The words that would grab the attention of the tech lead, the PM, and the HR are all different.