Could I get some career advice?

I'd like to work in software. I can graduate next year with a math degree and look for work, or I can study for additional CS-specific credentials, (two or three extra years for a Master's degree).

On the one hand, I'm told online that programming is unusually meritocratic, and that formal education and credentials matter very little if you can learn and demonstrate competency in other ways, like writing your own software or contributing to open-source projects.

On the other hand, mid-career professionals in other fields (mostly engineering), have told me that education credentials are an inevitable filter for raises, hiring, layoffs, and just getting interesting work. They say that getting a graduate degree will be worthwhile even if I could have learned equally valuable skills by other means.

I think I would enjoy and do well in graduate school, but if it makes little career difference, I don't think I would go. I'm skeptical that marginal credentials are unimportant, (or will remain unimportant in ten years), but I don't know any programmers in person who I could ask.

Any thoughts or experiences here?

? It's normalised to one for both players..:

There is no Pareto Optimal scenario that involves you making hamburgers or cat videos.

This makes sense, but made me confused about how the standard comparative advantage argument for trade, i.e., with two humans or two countries, works, and why it doesn't run into the same kind of conclusion. Turns out the confusion is justified. This 2007 paper, A New Construction of Ricardian Trade Theory, claims that all prior models of comparative advantage had the following problems:

On the contrary, the models so far analyzed had two crucial defects. (1) Inputs were restricted to labor as a unique factor and no material inputs were admitted. This implied that intermediate goods were excluded from any theoretical analysis of international trade. (2) Choice of techniques was not admitted. This is what is necessary when one wants to analyze technical change and development.

Surely advantages can also be comparative advantages. If you're trading beauty for attention, then presumably you have a comparative advantage in beauty.

You have three conflicting goals that only you can weight accordingly:

• Work at a successful startup (fame, fortune, culture or vision)
• Find a mate / companionship
• Employment market desirability hedge (what-if...)

What I would really like to do is build my own startup, or join a startup that I think has good prospects.

Winner: London.

The pool of women I am interested in dating is much bigger there. Dating prospects are probably less good [...]

Winner: London.

[...] and also the long-term effect of accepting a pay cut - if I worked in London again later, would I be able to negotiate my salary back up?

Winner: London.

Everything else sounds like noise, or sounds like they should be assigned lower weightings than the three concerns above. Another factor that you only can answer is how much extra time you'll carve out to keep up desirable startup skills (designer? developer? business?) while in London, as you mentioned that the London job will only allow you to specialize in an unattractive skill. This statement alone makes me wonder exactly what your previous two startup roles were -- if your skillset was good enough to join two prior startups, why would 18months of another skill diminish your existing desirability, both to startups and larger organizations in general?

Until you can provide weightings on the above, London sounds like the better choice due to the flexibility it offers you in the future, provided you have enough motivation and discipline to (a) stay actively engaged in the (presumably) larger London startup/tech scene; (b) spend (some) spare time on side projects to remain desirable to both future large employers and startups; (c) find a mate.

One counterpoint that you already mentioned was that Glasgow would give you more money after-tax. If the Glasgow vs. London after-tax income delta is large, and if your true primary 18mo goal is to "[...] get a financial cushion under myself before trying again", then clearly Glasgow is the way to go. Also, quick Google searches show that there seems to be more interest in boosting the Scottish tech scene in Glasgow and Edinburough. Depends on how serious you are about jumping back into the startup scene after 18 months.

We cooperate to compete, and a high level of fellow feeling makes us better able to unite to destroy outsiders.

--Robert Bigelow

How about starting in a supportive domain that you happen to be interested in where existing taxonomies and skill progressions seem to exist?

• http://intelligence.org/courses/
• http://rationality.org/recommended-reading-on-rationality/
• LW "curriculum"

Tech/skill trees help with the visualization process, and that goes a long way to motivation. Much of my struggle battling akrasia and learning math & beginner rationality is to try to stop imagining forbidding mountains of concepts, nomenclature and future practice, and instead focus on images of cartoonish/animated tech trees that are more appealing, tractable and familiar (for those of us with gaming backgrounds); ultimately, anything less intimidating than an impassible mountain to climb.

Added bonus: You will probably not find a more willing group of participants to enthusiastically input, rate and measure themselves on their cognitive and rationalist skills.

Added bonus 2: I speculate that CFAR may be able to integrate this type of system as additional value-add for post-workshop alumni.

edit: "Data Scientist" seems to be a buzz word used to trigger competence and desirability in job candidates. Here's an example of a visual roadmap: http://nirvacana.com/thoughts/becoming-a-data-scientist/. I think other people are willing to create skill trees, but the missing ingredient is the ability to animate and infuse them with meaning over time (i.e. referring back to your ideas of tests for each node/module with clear achievement and progress indicators).

Thank you, that's very nice to hear. I myself am rather frustrated with it: I started out with the intention of leaving with a Save The World pack, but nowadays I'm finishing the degree and finding that it's more like a Now At Least You Have A Vague Idea Where To Begin pack...

There are several ways to nullify, or even reverse progress:

• Falsify some hard-to-duplicate results in a way that calls previous results into doubt
• Subtly sabotage one or more experiments that will be witnessed by others
• Enthusiastically pursue some different avenue of research, persuading others to follow you
• Leave research entirely, taking up a post as an undergraduate physics lecturer at some handy university

There would have to be extremely good reason to try one of the top two; since they involve not only removing results, but actually poison the well for future researchers.