[manquer]

You mention CS education is not efficient way to learn to be a developer, the other problem it is expensive, maybe Europe is different it is certainly a major factor US and many other countries.

As you point out your strong background in CS helps a lot, which is why tech interviews want to filter by that skill, it is however not essential to be a good developer.

To be a good mechanic you don't need to know engineering, knowing engineering certainly helps and give you an edge over someone starting the same time as you, but not much for senior skilled hiring. I would rather have my car serviced by experienced high school dropout mechanic than MIT graduate out of college.

Personally, I have a background in electrical engineering, I started hiring tech startup right out of uni, neither knowing tech or hiring. It is been 7-8 years and we are now 150+ strong. My brother has PhD in CS and multiple post-docs, studied in top universities and now teaches at one. Between the two of us, you would hire me any day to build a real application. If both of us started careers as developers at the same time perhaps he may have become a better developer, however today my experience would count lot more than foundation knowledge his education will bring.

tldr: The background in CS helps early on as fresh grad, but it should not be a factor for senior hires, that is problem in FAANG hiring.

[melvinroest]

In The Netherlands the only expensive thing about it is opportunity cost, which is as amazing as it gets. Now, it's a bit worse though. 8 years ago, I received about 3000 euro's. My education was 1900, my travel was free (also sponsored) so the rest was for books and living on my own. I decided to stay at home and take a longer commute. 1100 euro's for books is more than enough in most cases. I know that this is in stark contrast to the US. And from my point of view (which is biased), I find the US to be in an unfortunate situation.

I agree with everything you said. Perhaps it might be interesting to remark that I feel this picture changes in the startup landscape were things aren't always that complicated, but where the people that hire you do seem to hold you to the same standards. This is why I'm always wary about the title of "senior" at a startup.