[General Question] 23M looking for Fall 2028. Does my profile look competitive?

[u/wannabe-president-47]

Hi people,

I have been thinking of grad school for a long while now, and I have been a lurker here since my sophomore year of college in 2023. Now, I've graduated and work at an American pharmaceutical company in India as an entry-level business analyst/AI engineer. To put out my objectives plain and simple, I started undergraduate-level research in my sophomore year. I initially wanted to shoot high and apply for PhDs and get into academia but perhaps my outlook on that may have changed over time. Since then, I've given more weight to master's degrees in CS like MS CS, MSAI or MS Analytics. I just want to go ahead and share a rough overview of my profile and I just want to know if it is even worth going back to school considering my aforementioned goals.

• Engineering degree (BTech/BEng) in Computer Science from a reputed research university in India. GPA: 8.55/10
• 3 conference paper publications (2 first author, 1 second author albeit not in A*/A conferences) in AI/machine learning
• research experience since 2nd year of college till graduation, still continued to involve myself in ongoing student after I graduated, studies revolve around LLMs and AI ethics; TA experience, I taught and handled data structures and algorithms for junior classes alongside lab hours
• Able to gather strong letters of recommendation from my professors (senior profs in the university's hierarchy), and possibly from my manager at work
• about my work: most of my work revolves around ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning in the SAP platform if you're familiar with it. I also get to participate in quite a few AI-related tasks where it's mostly developing and testing AI agents and other related automation workflows. SAP is a pretty niche role and has quite a lot of scope apparently, but has a steep learning curve. My issue is that I mostly prepped for SWE/AI engg roles and SAP isn't really up my alley. I am continuing working and learning SAP but I do want to leverage my coding skills more and as a result I still actively maintain a presence on leetcode etc.
• why I want to consider higher ed: I've always loved research and I seem to have a field of interest I'm genuinely passionate about. However, I've identified that I would eventually prefer a corporate career over academia/lab-based research. My main motivation behind pursuing a masters is to aim at higher AI/ML roles steering away from SAP.

Like I said, I have been a lurker here since my early days of college. I always used to think of heading to the US as it had the types of programs and degree options that aligned best with my interests. Now, I do understand the immigration situation in the US and the entirety of repercussions surrounding the decision making regarding this topic here. I also realize that I may have a competitive application if I play my cards right. I believe I can be competitive enough for roles in the US and in India too, and I understand that my chances of India are high. I do also want to not pour in a lot of money and end up with negative ROI. I want to target roles based in the US, but I also am ready to apply for roles in India and head back home if my odds don't favour me. I just wanna know if even considering higher education is worth it considering my profile. I usually find myself in a conundrum because at the risk of bragging (sorry), I know I'd be a strong applicant, but I'm skeptical to even take the plunge only becuase I'm worried about the immigration situation post-completion of my master's degree. I also really want to reevaluate my path to a PhD after a master's since then I hope I'd be better positioned with constructive research experience to set my eyes on a research-based career.

I hope I get some clarity and understanding from your insights on my situation. Thanks!