ohnorobot

rainbowglitter, I actually am just finishing up that exact experience - an amazing, challenging software engineer job at one of the companies you mentioned, on a very heavy-research product, on a team where I was literally the only non-PhD and doing about the same work as the PhDs, but no publications. It was an incredibly valuable experience, that I loved a lot, and am very happy I had, but I actually got into fewer schools this time around. However, I got into the program I really wanted with the professor I'm really excited about working with, so that doesn't matter. I think what I really got out of the experience is deciding why I'm going to graduate school and what I want to do and what I want to get out of the experience, which is not something I really had before. I've also gotten the chance to network with experts in the field, go to conferences, and meet a lot of great people in industry which will undoubtedly help me in academia and in my career in general. I also got the chance to meet the professor I'll be working with through work, so that's also a bonus. As another bonus, I decided I probably don't want to do PhD and am now mostly going for a master's. So just to get into more grad schools, as people mentioned, doubt it by itself will help much. To figure out what you want to do with your life and what's important to you and meet great people and mentors, I would highly recommend getting an industry job for a year or two. The thing you should do is build a great relationship with a professor, and convince them how your work experience will benefit their lab.