Ask HN: Mid career dilemma about pursuing MBA or MS in Tech Leadership?

  • I did a (regular, non tech-focused) executive MBA at 35, after about 3 years as a developer and 10 as a technical manager. I would absolutely do it again. After my MBA, I transitioned into a CTO role; I'm fairly sure I would have gotten the role without the MBA, but it helped. My feeling is larger companies value MBA diplomas more.

    Aside from the career boost, what I got out of my EMBA:

    * exposure to new topics, some of which I loved (and use on a regular basis), others that I hated (and now I have better clarity on what I don't want to do)

    * finance is high-school math with fancy words; it's really easy to pick up if you have a mind for numbers

    * this holds for a lot of topics (e.g. strategy, operations management, etc): a little domain knowledge, good heuristics (both of which you learn during the MBA) + general logic and problem-solving skills (which you probably already have as an engineer) go a long way

    * I built a good network and made a few great friends