[acka]

Whenever I read replies like these, I feel jealous of people who dropped out of college yet still managed to land a job in tech.

In my country, the Netherlands, it was almost impossible in the late 1980s to land a tech job other than a low-level service technician (read: roadie or cable guy) if you did not have at least a bachelor's degree or higher in a tech subject or a degree from a technical community college. College dropouts were turned away before even getting an interview, and bankers would rather commit suicide than finance tech startups founded by anyone without an appropriate college degree.

Times sure have changed.

[bluedino]

It still works both ways. I work for a very large company with no degree, doing HPC/AI

I used to work for another very large company doing the same thing, but as a contractor. A FTE position opened on our team but I was told by HR that I wasn't qualified for the role (even though I had been doing it for a few years on the same team...) because I didn't have a degree (not a requirement for a contractor)

[BehindBlueEyes]

Could you get your experience approved as equivalent to a degree, if there is such a thing - like the VAE in france.

My brother had to get a degree with evening classes for the same reason but since he was already doing the work, it was fairly easy - assuming the cost of studying isn't prohibitive where you live.

That said it is such BS. The whole contractor vs. FTE thing is.

Where I work, FTEs get laid off before contingency staff is fired. What is the point of having contingency staff if they're more permanent than FTEs?

Contractors who do the work for years can't get interviews because they're overqualified for the FTE position they apply for but the same hiring managers are happy to string them along doing the same work they're overqualified for, on the same team but as a contractor with less pay and none of the benefits.

I understand contractors applying to a junior role to even get a foot in the door when it is the only FTE role that opened for over a year... But you'd have better odds landing an FTE role straight out of graduating from college than with a track record of doing the work well for years as a contractor.

And they're "cool" so they let contractors attend a bunch of FTE meetings which has the primary effect of rubbing in all the great diversity and inclusion initiatives they are excluded from due to their second class citizen status.

At some point those companies don't deserve to have you. But even if you get paid half what the FTEs make, it's still a guilded cage with a 6 figures salary so it's hard to just give it the finger and move on.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Not really. IME, it's by far the exception that gets a tech job without a degree. If it were common, no one would bother mentioning it.

[adastra22]

Have they? I thought this was a uniquely Silicon Valley thing.