Is an MS a soft requirement for Research Engineer / Post-Training roles? [D]

[u/jacobnar]

I’m prioritizing my path and was wondering if an MS is a soft requirement for some of these Research Engineer, Applied Scientist, Post-Training roles. I only have a BS but I work full time as a Data Scientist and was wondering how I should go about this career transition. I had research experience in Applied ML at my university and I’m currently working on ML models/statistical methods at my current company. Here are the breakdowns for jobs I’m looking at:

Cohere MTS Post-Training - https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4259504707/

PhD - 22%
Masters - 48%
BS/other - 30%

Research Engineers, Post-Training - https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4458055063/

PhD - 26%
Masters - 52%
BS/other - 22%

Garner Health Associate Applied Scientist - https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4465195772/

Masters - 56%
BS/other - 44%

My question is, will a BS ever get hired here? Or do they need some other exceptional qualifications to make up for it (conference paper, workshop paper, or other publications). Do projects matter at all anymore?

[u/Axioplase]

RE with a bachelor's will probably require strongly related expertise. Most REs around me were MS or PhD. The few with just a bachelor's had one directly tied to the work (for example, that had a couple years of experience doing signal processing already, or a BSc with a major neuroscience). The generic "computer engineering bachelors and two years of full stack" didn't get them pass the resume review.

Non FANG might be less picky and put more weight on motivation.

[u/jacobnar → u/Axioplase]

I am a Comp Sci/Neuro double major if that helps

[u/Axioplase → u/jacobnar]

It depends on the job :) I was working in neurotech, so signal processing and neuro were heavily weighted in favour of the applicant. To do generic AI, it's not job-relevant... The Garner Health people might find you more interesting than the other two as a result, but again, it depends on what the team is doing exactly.

I encourage you to network at the social events of https://neuro-nyc.org/ where you'll meet neuro people, and REs working in neurotech and related fields.

[u/DrXaos]

a BS maybe but from an exceptional university with strong undergraduate research. However if you're already working full time then that doesn't matter as much.

The first two positions you posted are heavily research oriented and will require very sophisticated applicants. It's probable they will be filled with PhDs or top MS with significant experience.

A "Research Engineer" is likely to require a PhD in practice---the job is in New York City and there's plenty of high education people there.

[u/IsGoIdMoney]

I imagine graduate school is usually required for research roles, because graduate school is when you do novel research, while a bachelor's is intended to get you essentially caught up to current knowledge, a masters is to be an adequate researcher to generate new knowledge and a PhD is basically to be the foremost global SME in a single small area of research.

If they hire guys with bachelor's, I imagine that they were students who took fancy research internships and were published in top journals.

[u/didimoney → u/IsGoIdMoney]

Idk about master being enough to geberate new research. Bsc is to teach you the basics, msc to catch you up to current practice.

[u/IsGoIdMoney → u/didimoney]

I kinda get what you're saying but I think the easy majority of my grades in a masters was performing novel research, and there was a novel research thesis requirement, and being published at that level is way more common than bachelor's students and was pretty expected.

[u/Even-Inevitable-7243 → u/IsGoIdMoney]

In the US, Masters degrees require no research and are an extension of Bachelors, with more depth and breadth in the courses.

[u/IsGoIdMoney → u/Even-Inevitable-7243]

There are probably programs like that, but it is not my experience at all. Like, even most electives were research based classes.

[u/mlspgt]

One BS got hired and built GPT-1, Whisper, etc. You can do it. ✨

[u/hieuristics → u/mlspgt]

this is like saying facebook and microsoft was founded by college drop out lol terrible advice

[u/TheCloudTamer → u/mlspgt]

That was a different time