[josephhardin]

I'd say if you can do it in two years, including deficiency courses, and without publishing, you're probably not getting your moneys worth and yes it will be looked down upon. Three years(take a lot of courses) and/or a publication or two will look much better. Of course, if you think you can do extra curricular activities to create a portfolio(github projects, contributing to open source, create a product), then it might not matter how well the MS is looked upon, if you show you have a track record of delivering.

[shubb]

This bar sounds really very high. I read things like this a lot, but it doesn't match up with what I see.

No employer has ever asked me for a github address, or a list of open source commits. I put github on my CV via a goo.gl url last time, and counted very few visits. Yet they invited me for interview.

HR filter by qualifications, and hiring managers filter before phone screen on what you claim in your CV. Then they assess at the interview whether you were lieing.

If you were genuinely famous in the OS community, or had spent a year full time making an amazing product they could see, I think things would be different. For most software engineers, 80% of our work is for our employer. I've made some awesome stuff for other people. It's not on github. My boss wouldn't like that.

Is the above really a good recommendation? I'd say at least the MS would get him through the HR filter?

[tracker1]

I have no formal education beyond H.S. and simply don't list education on my resume... At this point I have about 18 years of experience in Software Development, so take it with a grain of salt. For the most part, education has been a poor indicator of how well a given developer works. I've have seen quite a few interviews where people will look at your github contributions (I have very little).

[josephhardin]

The M.S. does, but as stories like this become more common, non-namebrand MS programs will start to lose some luster. Being able to point to a publication, or a project you run, or something genuinely useful to at least someone, goes a long way to distinguish you from the people who went to school, but never programmed in their free time, and do it purely as a job. Passion as a buzzword is very overrated in this community, but at least a little bit of it is required to make you stand out. I'd imagine this goes doubly so for the startup world.