[mathattack]

Go to school. UT has a good enough program that you'll be able to learn something from someone there, and it'll be a fun four years. You don't want to look back at 50 and say, "Man I wish I had 4 years of academic freedom and good times"

Yes, you can get a job without it. Yes, you are qualified even now, though making more code visible will help.

Once you go the no-college route, you're pretty much locked in to word of mouth job searches from here on out. If you're good enough, it won't matter.

The single best programmer I ever met dropped out of college to program full time. He was already programming 12 hours a day for love, it just didn't happen to coincide with his assignments. He will never need to job search - word of mouth will carry him until he dies. If that's really you, consider going straight into the working world. If not, consider school.