Well, I&#x27;ve been a consultant for 20 years.  That started before the PhD, and has continued since then.   And while my advisor didn&#x27;t know about it at the time, I was also doing some consulting work during the PhD, so that my family (wife + 3 kids) could afford rent, food, and health insurance.<p>My ability to get gigs was always pretty good -- but it really skyrocketed about 2 years ago.  That&#x27;s when I decided to explicitly pursue training in a few technologies (Python, Git, PostgreSQL, and Ruby) rather than &quot;doing whatever they want, using whatever technology they want.&quot;  That specialization, and my focus on training, has done wonders to my career; I&#x27;m earning more, having more fun, and doing more interesting work (I think) than when I was looking all over for development jobs.<p>I still get to do software development, but now I do it for things I want, or when researching new topics for myself.  I have a few SaaS ideas that I&#x27;ve been thinking about, but haven&#x27;t had time, between writing books and doing courses.<p>It&#x27;s hard to say whether the PhD has helped me much.  On the one hand, I put it on my ebook covers, since I figure it&#x27;ll impress some people enough to buy the book.  And to be honest, I have used (and continue to use) many of the techniques I learned in the LS program in my lectures, which I do think help to make me a more effective trainer.  However, I think that people hire me not because of the PhD, but because I have built up a reputation -- and once you do a few successful courses for a company, they&#x27;re very likely to hire you back.<p>I did work as a regular employee for a bunch of years: I worked at HP&#x27;s medical products group (spun off as Agilent, and then sold to Philips, both after I was there), and then for Time Warner.  When I moved to Israel in 1995, I figured that this was a good chance to try my hand at consulting -- and I haven&#x27;t had any regrets since.<p>It&#x27;s a sad, but true, state of affairs in the computer industry, in that people in their mid-30s who are qualified and bright have a hard time getting jobs.  I&#x27;m fortunate in that I haven&#x27;t had to deal with that.  (And I&#x27;m now 45, so I&#x27;m definitely over the hill in terms of getting development jobs.)  Consulting has provided me with something of a cushion there.