What is the difference in the job prospects in the industry between a master's in computer science and a PhD in computer science?

A2A Most job prospects are for entry level programming jobs that depends on the skills you learn for a particular development environment that varies from the front end web development to backend apps such as database, or underlying operating systems. The career path is either technical where you continue building solutions in terms of apps or managerial where you have allocated resources including people for a variety of business functions. The real money is in management that has stock options or equity in a startup. The usually terminal degrees are an MS and an MBA. And they are not mutually exclusive. For example in your case, when you complete your CSBS, you can get an entry level job and pursue an MSCS, and should you desired to enter management - usually five to ten years down the road - you could pursue an MBA or EMBA.A PhD is a demonstration of doing original research under the supervision of an advisor and committee where you write and defend your dissertation. It prepares you to be researcher as opposed to a developer. Because a PhD usually has three or more specializations, a master's has one, it prepares you for a variety of entry level jobs. However, since most jobs are in one specialization, for economic reasons, an MSCS is preferred over PhD in jobs that do not require original research.When you consider degrees, you should not view future employment that depends on your future accomplishment, a volatile job market, and luck that a job would be available. You should pursue something you are passionate about, forgetting what post graduate opportunities may be in future , a future that may not happen. You should focus on the degree that satisfy your goals. Many students fail to get a degree because they have lost focus to the business at hand. They are looking at the forest and not the trees.When you graduate with an BSCS, you have two choices: get a job or get more education and a get job. Unless you are independently wealthy, you will need a job. If you continue your education incurring more debt, you need to weight the costs, the benefits, and the risk.Here is a costs benefit risk analysis. If you have funding for a doctorate, the cost of pursuing a doctorate is lost work experience. The benefit is that you will be more marketable (three or more specializations) and have access to research jobs that you would not have with MSCS. The risk which is the same for a MSCS and PhD which  is that you do not compete the degree or what you accomplished is not strong enough for entry level jobs. Should you not get funding, your Plan B is to get a job and do a part time MSCS ideally at a top 10 CS department using http://omscs.gatech.edu/ as backup.Should you decide not to pursue a doctorate, the costs benefit analysis risk of a terminal master's is that it is better to do a full time job and a part time MSCS because of the lost work experiences. When you are working, you are earning a salary and paying off you student debt. It may take you five years but that will be five years of work experience. More over you do not have to start the degree immediately. The risk of not completing the degree has no effect since you have a job.Now for specific recommendations: Because you have a research track record as an undergraduate (hopefully with a senior thesis), you should apply directly to the PhD program using the MSCS as a backup such as a combined BS/MS. A PhD program with funding is a job with great educational benefits. One university I recommend everyone to apply to is the University of Texas at Austin because they will consider you for their MSCS program if they feel you do not have enough experience for a doctorate - one application with two considerations. When you are in a PhD program with funding, you have the option to complete the MSCS requirements and leave with a master's, which is usually the case for student who do not pass the preliminary exams.  Bottom line: Given the details of your question, you should apply directly to PhD program using the MSCS program as a backup. Getting funding determines whether or not you should pursue a PhD with only an BSCS.

From a career coaching perspective, both the Masters and the doctoral level degrees in computer science address completely different levels of employment. It is common to pursue a Masters level degree if you are still wanting to be a technology professional who actually does the work and for those who would like to become leaders but stay in the technology sector. The doctoral level degree is a research and development degree to a large extent. Since they do not emphasize programming, a PhD probably doesn't program as well as a Masters level candidate. Therefore most employers think that doctoral level applicants are not in the same class as Masters levels applicants.In summary, you could price yourself out of a job if you were trying to apply for a lower level job with a doctoral degree. It is conceivable that you could apply for a doctoral level job with a Masters level degree though.Please forgive my typographical, punctuation and spelling errors. I'm using speech-to-text software to post this message.