[actually_a_dog]

The whole "demanding a CS degree" thing is just another filter. FAANG can afford to apply a ton of arbitrary filters and still get enough good candidates to fill their ranks.

OTOH, I am hiring for the startup I work for, and I explicitly don't require a CS degree, or any degree whatsoever in my job descriptions. It's not just because I don't have a CS degree myself (my degrees are in math), but because nobody gives a shit what degrees anybody has here as long as they can do the job. Conversely, you can have a CS degree from the #1 school in the world, and I don't give a damn if you can't do the job.