[lultimouomo]

I got my first job as a programmer at 26, with only a BA in philosophy in my pockets and no previous work experience whatsoever, so I'm pretty sure you can succeed, and you don't need to go back to uni for that. Sure, I was a bit younger than you, but I didn't have previous experiences in IT as you have. I did have some open source contributions to show, and I think they were a determining factor in landing that first job; maybe you could find an interesting project to contribute to as well. But the most important thing you should remember is that your kind of education makes you an oddball in the field, and this can work for you as much as it can work against you. It will raise some suspicion in the interviewer, but it will also give you the opportunity to stand out among other candidate:

- philosophy is in a way a perfect alternate education path for a programmer, as it trains analytical skills and critical thought.

- it also usually gives you communication skills that are rare among computer people; you are probably able to express yourself in a more appropriate and fluent way than most other people applying for the same jobs, and this is something that can really work for you during an interview, as long as you go in confident.

- as a last bonus, it can show that you are really passionate about programming, and you're not another run-of-the-mill guy that got a CS degree as the safest way to be sure to have a paycheck at the end of the month.

If you find a way to make interviewers consider all these things, I think you'll land a job in a reasonable amount of time.