&gt; Maybe I&#x27;m doing it wrong, but I don&#x27;t have a computer science degree and I currently find myself considering a master&#x27;s for those reasons. It would be nice to avoid having to go that route.<p>Whatever reason you have for going or not going is a good reason.<p>I have a master&#x27;s in CS.  Getting it did help me break into a new industry.  It may have earned me a better chance at interviews.  It didn&#x27;t get me a higher salary in the near term.  I&#x27;d have earned more by sticking with my first job.  For money alone, experience is best.<p>And I knew that going in.  Personally, I felt comfortable with my expected future earnings before getting the degree.  I <i>wasn&#x27;t</i> comfortable with the rate of my learning at my job.  I was headed towards plateauing on a very specific proprietary programming tool (called Ab Initio) whose skills, I felt, weren&#x27;t easily transferrable to other areas of programming.  It turns out I was right and wrong.<p>Anyway, later in my career, this degree may distinguish me somehow, but in the near term I don&#x27;t find that it makes much difference to anyone but me.  Ultimately, the interview is about how you sell yourself, and a degree doesn&#x27;t sell itself.  It may get you an interview but it doesn&#x27;t make you a better fit for more organizations.<p>The reason I went back was I missed classroom learning and wanted exposure to new fields of programming.  I ended up studying machine learning.  That was in 2006-2008.  Now, I try to continue learning using available resources and communities online.  Focus is tough though.  School was great for forced focus.  I thought a lot about the pros and cons of going back to school and decided it was right for me at that time.  I&#x27;m glad I did it, I learned a lot, met some really cool students and professors who I wouldn&#x27;t otherwise know, and it gave me some insight into what a PhD and life in academia entails.<p>Good luck with your decision!