There will be corporations waiting to employ people the rest of your life. Going back to school later if you change your mind is a lot harder once you’ve started to build a life. Solidify that foundation now while it’s easy and you’re still in school mode.

If you had a different offer, I'd say consider it, but Amazon is VERY likely to leave you high and dry within 12 months. Never ever trust that company unless you are completely willing and able to land on your feet when they unceremoniously kick you to the curb tomorrow for no good reason other than some manager needed a scapegoat to make his numbers look good.

Do yourself a favor, stay out of the current mess of a market, stay away from Amazon, and take some extra time to learn more and become more employable.

Also, never trust Reddit. It's like 50% bots and trolls and 50% idiots who have no idea what they're talking about whatsoever but like to make themselves feel like they're smart by saying whatever dumb unfounded idea comes to their head. It's just as bad or worse than Twitter. Would you take advice from random people on Twitter?

Amazon will still be there, if that’s what you decide for your soul afterward. If you made the cut now, you’ll make the cut again in future.

The world is so much bigger than commerce. Even if you choose to work the world of commerce, you’ll have a richer experience of it, and bring more subtle value to your professional career, entering into it with eyes that can see other hues in the outside world.

Plus relationships with a cohort of smart thoughtful humans who are engaging with the world from other perspectives, as you all go into the decades ahead.

Amazon is not a particularly good company to work for, and if you could land an offer there, surely you could land a better offer by the time you graduate.

The opportunity cost here is very minimal if you think slightly longer term. In fact the doors that Cambridge might open down the road could far exceed whatever money you save as a L3/4 at Amazon.

If it was Cambridge vs a frontier lab or HFT offer of > 400-500k then it might be a harder decision, since it's likely that those are still the top jobs you would want after graduation.

Cambridge masters is much more of a once in a lifetime opportunity than Amazon is. People who tell you to go take the job probably are projecting and just want a job themselves.

If you have to pay -lets say- 30.000 bucks, rethink.

The additional time of being student will open you newer doors, than if you are already working - assumption: IF the CS master is free, otherwise it may not pay off

Being a student is a huge privilege in most countries accordings to different costs/fees/taxes - so I recommend everyone to keep this status, as long AS IT IS FREE and legally possible.

If you want money, status symbols and no life = Amazon. Oh, you might gain some experience that is near useless in a non-FAANG org.

If you value life, freedom, keeping your mind active, living up to your full potential then Cambridge.

In my experience, the hedonic treadmill is the biggest trap. But I only arrived at that conclusion after running furiously for decades and having little to show for it, well except for a burnt out husk.

If I was in your position I would try to combine masters with working at a startup or a small company.

Context: Been at Google for 10 years. I have a master's in CS/ML myself. Wouldn't trade it for working in FAANG a couple of years earlier.

In this case you will be well reared to take advantage of it.

Amazon sounds like an absolutely terrible place to work, and I'm not convinced it's going to be stable or long-term lucrative for someone just entering the job market now.

I don't think a masters in CS is going to buy you flexibility and money in the long term. Specializing further is the opposite of flexibility. Staying in school longer carries an opportunity cost, and a masters doesn't increase your salary much when it comes to software.

(And if you're aiming to be a Big Deal at an AI lab eventually, a PhD would probably be what you want.)

Do the masters if you think you'd enjoy that particular experience. Go out and find a job of you think you'd enjoy that more.

So in terms of long-term money, the question is the oldest one in economics: when is the next market crash? There's two conflicting narratives right now. One is that new AI technologies are going to take a handful of companies to the moon. The other is that these companies are engaged in an incestuous network of investments and the whole thing is about to come crashing down.

If the former is true, or even just a normal economy, the fastest way to make money long-term is to make a lot short-term while living like a monk and investing.

If the latter is true, all the stock you purchase/are granted in the next couple years will lose a big chunk of its value, and you will spend years just getting back to even, so you might as well wait a couple of years and jump in after the next crash.

Meet as many people as you can, go to social events, these connections could help you for the rest of your life.

2. Don't chase perceived prestige. In a few years nobody will care

3. I don't know, but I'm assuming you're young. If you already have a BSc or similar and have been accepted by Cambridge then there are many places you could go. The people you meet and get to know could unlock future flexibility.

4. Don't work for Amazon. Maybe they made you a good offer but, even more so than other corporations, they don't care about you. They'll run you hot and then stick a fork in you without a moment's hesitation.

I loved doing a masters as a mature student, but I was very lucky to be able to do so.

School won't always be so easy. Do school.

Also, Amazon are gross.

So, if you see yourself starting at amazon, working a couple years, going to Cambridge later - you will join it with a much better background and experience, you will get more from the education. If you cant do that, go for Cambridge. Amazon wont get you enough experience to sustain on a long term

You'll have no problem getting the Amazon job (or similar) with a masters degree from Cambridge afterwards.

I doubt you'll retire wishing you'd worked just one more year at Amazon.

(I have a masters from Imperial. An equally good alternative if you'd prefer to live in London, or prefer somewhere a little more business focused. Google and Amazon both skipped the first interview stage based on my degree.)

Also if you ask Amazon, they're very likely to keep the job offer open for a year.

In other words, take the experience that maximizes your growth, intelligently taken. For example: master the theoretics, yet allocate time to get practical technical experience ("can you do this and that"), and meanwhile build a network with the most worthwhile people you meet...

Don't waste time. Maximize experience in view of what will be useful later. You correctly identified "flexibility".

There are plenty of opportunities other than Amazon, I am not sure if the same could be said for Cambridge.

That is assuming you have no financial burden.

If you have a genuine love for computer science and the craft of programming then steer clear from the corporate world. It will suck the life out of you.

(i've been in industry for 18+ years, went to a name brand school, and live in the heart of silicon valley. Cambridge, i'd imagine, gives you at the least a more interesting story, and at the most a different opportunity set. amazon is now the lower bar of what you should hope to attain after Cambridge.)

Which subreddit did you post on? Try one that's similar Hacker News like maybe programming and I think you'd get similar adobe as HN.

Over the long term (assuming the next 10-15 years) getting more experience with building, communicating, and operating systems that solve business problems will get you more cash.

In theory, that masters may boost your starting comp but in the longer term, your comp would likely end up similar. I've worked on numerous teams with a mix of all academic levels and it has never been a huge predictor of comp.

Take this with a grain of salt, it's all anecdotal :).

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Congrats on 2 wonderful options!

- it's easier to keep going than to come back from a job. - our industry is changing, heavily, and I have no idea what shape it'll be in in four years time. - I think that AI is making much of the experience of an entry level redundant. What you get from your masters might make more of a difference.

You gave too little information for us to recommend effectively.

For example, if your TL or manager doesn't like you and is deliberately setting you up to fail, you might not catch it early enough to be prepared. They won't tell you in the open either. They'll deliberately try to hide it and trick you into thinking that you're safe. Once you're in that position, they'll try to force you to work as much as possible and leaving is more difficult.

If you go the Cambridge route, you're getting domain knowledge which could let you get specialist roles (and likely a better support structure) at better companies. It's a no-brainer really. Amazon is desperate for practically any warm body they can get because no one with options wants to work there. If you're ever at a point in your career where you have to join amazon, it means that you played the game wrong and got blindsided by a layoff or something. (Ditto for all the other shitty amazon-like sweatshop companies, Elon companies, etc. Don't forget this: company reputation matters)

I've hired ex-Amazon engineers at Google who believe that your job is to fuck over as many other teams as possible in the name of delivering your feature as quickly as possible so you can climb the ladder, and who believe your manager's job is to back you up while you fuck over those other teams and steal credit from other engineers on them. They tend to struggle in Google's more collaborative culture, and I'd imagine they'd also struggle in other companies that are a little less sociopathic. The problem is particularly acute with people who have never worked anywhere but Amazon; older employees coming out of Amazon are more like "Well, that's just how Amazon is, I'll adapt myself to whatever culture my current job has", but junior engineers are often shaped and molded by it because they've never known anything else.

I'm often a big fan of going to industry early because a.) you make more money early which can then compound and b.) you actually do learn a lot of tacit knowledge working in industry, very often more relevant than what you'd learn as a student. But if the choice is between Amazon and Cambridge I would probably do Cambridge.

studying typically requires you to think broader, while companies usually want you to take a very specific role.

As everyone has already said, Amazon is fickle, and if you do work there, live on ramen and save up as much cash as you possibly can until that point. This AI hyperscale buildout bubble is about to pop, having a relatively stable University around you while that happens might be a very good thing.

AI itself, will remain useful, it just won't be distorting the entire stock market after the pop.

In my country you can study at weekends

If not, then take job imo.

Salary and real world experience >> academic bullshit

Flexibility and money are your long term goals, and the masters opens more doors to that than getting into industry today. What subfield would you be getting your masters in?

Nothing more freeing than being young with good savings. Puts life on easy mode.

You can always get your Masters if you get laid off. Jobs are precious especially for new grads. Do not make the mistake of passing over this job offer, it’s worth so much more than a masters degree. You can always get your master’s later on, for example if you get laid off from Amazon and can’t find another job.