I have a deep desire to work as a library ( reactJS, Redux etc ) author with an all star team in a big company like Facebook or maybe Google. I have big dreams and I am confident that I can work my way up. I believed in self learning, but now that many of my friends are talking about MS and how important it is, I am having second thoughts about my decision of not doing MS.
Can someone shed some wise words on this topic?
As far as i have gone through for Programmer and developer industry is having a very straight forward demand "Person should be good in Technical stacks". Having a graduation degree is more than enough.
If you are able to showcase your key skill and you are able to convince that you can do it then its all set.
Is the MS intended to make for lack of experience? Is there something specific the MS offers that you will not get otherwise? How much research have you done on getting into one of your Dream companies?
Define the goal - what does it take to get a job with <BIG TECH COMPANY>.
Gap analysis - What do I offer? What do I lack? Am I willing to do what it takes to fill in the gaps in my tech profile?
Make the plan - I need to do these things to achieve my goal.
Most jobs I see post that they're looking for a Master's in CS, or equivalent experience. If you've been hacking away for 5 years and working in the real world flexing relevant skills, they'll be interested in you.
As long as you can show that you can do the job and do it well, anyone who's cool shouldn't care too much about your background.
Aakash Mallik
S/W Engineer @ Samsung R&D Delhi
I'm assuming you're from India, going by the location on your profile.
Now, I am not saying this is the thing to or not to do, but these are my two cents on it.
People immediately choose to do an MS in a field that they don't really know about after their undergrad. Sure, it paves a path to a lot of money, a fancy job in the valley (or anywhere else for that matter etc), but I am super against the 'following the herd' principle that Indian college kids have seemed to adopt.
Many of classmates did the same too. More often than not, college kids lack experience and aren't really sure about what they want to do. It's more like, "Oh, he is going to UCLA, let me give it a shot too!". On the other hand, there are some other kids (A very little percentage), who actually start very serious programming at the college level. They apply for something like a GSOC internship and start talking in international conferences, even before they graduate. They land up eventually in the big 4 too. There's an even smaller niche of people who participate in Algorithmic Competitions like TopCoder. Facebook (or Google) values that more than a MS degree.
It's also perfectly possible to land a job at the big 4 without an MS degree.
But before any of that, go out, work in the industry for a year or two, see if you like it (and if yes, you'll know what you like - a very specific niche). Industry experience is important because, at the university level, it's all very very theoretical. In India, the education system is rather outdated as well (At least it was in 2014).
If you're still academically inclined after your stint in the industry, you can go to a nice university and study more about it, perhaps in the form of a doctorate or a master's degree.