[TylerLives]

> but mostly every job posting you'll see for software is "requires bachelor of computer science or equivalent"

I'm not speaking from personal experience here, but from what I've read online, people without degrees often manage to get interviews at those companies, even though they don't meet the requirement.

[Jtsummers]

"Equivalent" often includes professional experience. If you are straight out of high school and have never programmed, you don't have the equivalent of a CS bachelors. If you've just been discharged from the Army and worked as an MP for 20 years, you don't have the equivalent (most likely). However, if you've been working for 3-8 years (depending on what you've done), you should be approaching equivalency, at least in the areas most offices need you to be. That is, you likely won't know or understand theoretical CS, the difference between regular and context free languages, various advanced CS/programming areas, or some of the math topics. But you'll be competent in one or more programming languages, core algorithms and data structures (their use, if not their creation), real-world systems programming (lower level OS tuning, databases, etc.), and more.

This is what the "equivalent" means for many (but not all) employers (the HR departments may not be so enlightened, however).

[JaggerJo]

Just here to emphasise the fact that the average fresh bachelor holder is way less competent in software development than someone who spent 3 years+ in the industry.

Equivalent here does not really mean equivalent.

[JaggerJo]

Basically this means:

You either need a Bachelors degree or a (small) track record of success in the industry.

[Jtsummers]

Right, because that'd be the equivalent (via OJT). Now, not all HR offices are sufficiently enlightened to get that concept, but you probably don't want to work in those places anyways in that case.