Here is a possibly unpopular opinion. I have a Phd (got it when I was young). In some areas of computing (e.g. OS, Systems) work gets obsolete fairly quickly. I suspect my PhD topic was useless about 4-10 years after I finished the thesis. Of course, I got a few hundred citations, and this suggests that perhaps more enduring work was done based on mine, but in any case, I don't buy the dent in the universe argument for some fast changing fields (e.g. Deep Learning today). My wife was reading the life story of Louis Pasteur to our 6 year old, and it was remarkable what a dent his contribution made. Most people I knew who finished Phds did not do much of note (and this is fairly elite tier). One person has an algorithm named after them but it is also a bit obsolete (e.g. happened to a lot of classical CV and NLU algorithms post DL).
I was talking to a theoretical Physics PhD at a conference recently, and even he was quite jaded (he switched to CS post PhD). It was obvious that this person was wicked smart and had quant knowledge. So if you want a PhD for transferable skills, go for it! A masters might be faster though.
Do what makes you happy at the end.. it is sort of nice I can drop in the fact I have a PhD and it was probably good for me on the whole .. but if you are thinking of getting a PhD in CS, consider attending top conferences in your field before committing (e.g. SOSP for OS/Systems, CVPR for vision, CHI for HCI,...). I just had no clue what I was getting into and I actively wish someone had given me this sort of info before I got into it. A PhD has a huge opportunity cost.
I was talking to a theoretical Physics PhD at a conference recently, and even he was quite jaded (he switched to CS post PhD). It was obvious that this person was wicked smart and had quant knowledge. So if you want a PhD for transferable skills, go for it! A masters might be faster though.
Do what makes you happy at the end.. it is sort of nice I can drop in the fact I have a PhD and it was probably good for me on the whole .. but if you are thinking of getting a PhD in CS, consider attending top conferences in your field before committing (e.g. SOSP for OS/Systems, CVPR for vision, CHI for HCI,...). I just had no clue what I was getting into and I actively wish someone had given me this sort of info before I got into it. A PhD has a huge opportunity cost.