This. Degrees (other than top tier) stopped mattering a while ago but somehow many paying students haven’t noticed yet.
Actually implementing methods from recent papers will give a real education and at the very least a really damn impressive portfolio, if not some notoriety on its own.
Make reference implementations from a couple recent papers, publish them on GitHub. Fine tune a demo model to show off during an interview.
Thats shows you lean into the work, not memorization of academias circumlocution