Bad time to be trying to move to Washington and get a job in tech, just keep that in mind.

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Stay there. Get the masters. Things might return to a better place by the time you're done.

you really don’t have to worry about getting a job with that degree, someone will hire you either way

I'm super perplexed by your interest in "Washington" generically, it's pretty well known for being a state that varies a ton. Seattle is quite different from Tacoma is different from Bellingham and wildly different from Spokane or Yakima, and the cities are all very different from the small towns which in turn vary drastically by region (coastal? In the mountains? Farm country?)

What is it that interests you about Washington? What are your goals? Do you want to live in a cool city with a big tech community while you're young and have a little money? Then I'd say go to Seattle. Do you want to try to get a job that's pretty stable and buy a house in a suburban environment? You could probably find work in the tri-cities.

Masters first if you want to be competitive. Most of the resumes I receive for tech here has Masters degree.

Did you not just post about this same topic the other day…?

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It really bothers me that this is such common advice for new grads. While this can be a good path for those with some experience, it's bad for new grads for a few reasons.

Going straight for a graduate degree without working means you won't have practical real world experiences to connect the concepts you learn to. This effectively leads to a all books smarts and no street smarts perspective.

Trying to land a job with a Masters degree and little to no professional work experience leads to being both over and under qualified at the same time. Employers will see you as under qualified for mid level roles because you don't have any work experience, and over qualified for every level roles. Plus if you do manage to get a mid level roles, you'll be behind your peers because you very likely haven't had the opportunity to learn any soft skills yet.

Edit: Skills you typically learn on the job versus in school include but are not limited to: stakeholder management, communication with non-technical audiences, negotiation skills, project management, strategic planning, technical troubleshooting, data visualization for business audiences, and written business communication.

I got a B.S. in Civil Engineering this may in PA and started a job here in Tacoma a week later. So it's possible with only a Bachelors, and tech is big here especially near Seattle but that might have more competition for you moving from out of state.

I'd say give it a shot whatever you want to do

Usually they gain experience through summer internships. Most of them will do 2-3 summers of internships to get an return offer at the last year of their school.

I did the path you have described. Gained experience and take Master later. It actually put me at a disadvantage as most of the roles that I want to move into requires a Master or MBA. Experience is important but it screens me out right from the start when master is a preferred requirement.

When I say get some experience I mean like 2-3 years, and then head school. What kind of roles were you interested in that required a Master's or MBA?

Most PM roles in Google needs Masters from the JD. And I couldn’t pass the screening stage without the Master despite having 10 years of experience. I only started to get call back after I had my Master.

However, my partner who is newly graduated with Master’s without experience, got the call back and went through interview right after graduation with Google.

So I think it’s important to have the paper qualification based on my own experiences.

I was at Amazon for 5+ years, advanced degrees were nice to have but experience was a sufficient replacement, for technical roles at least.