Master's or While working learn on your own
I have been working as a software developer for the past 4 years mostly on startups. Pay is good(top 10%) no issues while working everything good in work life no problems. But there is always a feeling that I am not good at basic understanding of development I feel it is because I didn't go to any IIT or any other major colleges or didn't study for any particular exams. I just learned everything by doing it not by preparing beforehand. There is fear that maybe that's not always enough which makes me a little bit afraid of giving interviews of big tech companies. So I am not able to decide where I should go from here. Should I start with masters or should I just learn everything I can from basics to have a solid understanding or maybe some other path.
If your objective is to learn then do it by yourself by doing projects. If you want to go to some other high paying country or if you want a strong alumni network then go for a master's. Be ready to pay the tuition + opportunity cost for the latter. Do the risk vs return analysis and ask around the people that did one of these
What if education cost is not a problem?
If you're looking to go to a high paying country like the US then evaluate your profile first. See if it's good enough to be accepted by the top 200 (ideally top 100) universities (don't go below this) and prepare for GRE/TOEFL. The top x number and the tests vary based on the country. Don't go to Canada tho, it's most def not worth it
If you actually want to learn basics, going to Master's will be worse than a waste of time, it will be counterproductive. The course assumes you already have a grasp of the basics and resumes from there. Worse, it's all theory masturbation and 90% of what u will learn, u will never use again and forget. There's no better way to learn than to see them in the context of real life at a job. If you think you've explored all types of problems at your current job, maybe it's time for a switch.
username 😂
No need for masters, your current approach is good enough to learn what you need
If you want to switch, start learning more about the new company, what stack they use and what skills they might need from you. Much more fruitful than masters
If you don't mind seeing your hard earned money go down the drain, then go for masters. You can learn a lot more by working on system design for good projects.
Masters wont teach you anything specific (if you continue with the same subjects as the work part)
Choose the topics which you lack and learn on your own :)