Questions of a prospective MS student
Does it make sense to do a MS in Computer Science after 7 years of work experience as a Linux System Administrator? What are the chances that someone may lose seniority in the job after MS?
You didn't say what sort of organisation you work for. Maybe you should discuss the idea with HR, there might be a career development path open to you that will allow you to better integrate your newly acquired skills. Maybe, doing the studies part-time would be better than full-time.
I have mostly seen that the work culture in India is not what I like to work in. I have recently tried working for Facebook in Ireland. Apparently that did not work out very well either primarily because of the kind of work they gave me was mostly NOC sort of job. My take on why I was given such a job was because probably I did not have a MS and they did not take me seriously enough.
I have demonstrated taking companies from scratch through a PCI-DSS certification, so I am capable of doing better than NOC jobs. Also, I would like to work for or setup my company in the US.
Unfortunately, I do not know any HR or forum where I can ask this question.
It does make sense to do a MS, but have a job in mind like network engineer, developer, or technical manager that you want. A MS will be frowned upon by your bosses and your competitors, which is all the more reason to go for it. Nevertheless many corporations with strict pay scales will pay much more for a MS.
The last I went to work for Facebook in Ireland, I found that they gave me a much less salary and designation than that I would have got if I worked in India. This may not be correct since FB never told me that the reason was my lack of MS.
I have worked for MNCs like Yahoo and Juniper and also startups like iXiGO and iViZ. My position with Juniper as well as iXiGO was Senior System Administrator and Information Systems Architect respectively.
I am essentially looking at a Technical Manager or Architect position. I do develop for pleasure, but I am more into designing things and coding stubs rather than coding end to end.
In the US, there is no such thing is seniority in the job (barring some exceptions in govt. jobs etc). You are senior based on your experience and not just because you are a fresh MS graduate but with 7+ years of experience. Hzaving said that, the answer to your question depends on what you really want to do going forward. MS in CS is a lot more than System Administration. Are you interested in software development jobs ? Web development ? I would say think twice before going for an MS which will take 2 years of your time. Based on your post, you are in/from India and I can tell you that just getting an MS will not automatically get you in a higher salary range or designation as you call it at least here in the US. Indian working culture is different than the US in that sense.