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I don't have a degree, and have been a software developer for over 8 years. All self-taught on the internet. I work for a technology research agency, with some absolutely amazing engineers. Former googlers, top of the field stuff. Though sometimes they are speaking far above my current knowledge, the fact that I don't have a degree is never an issue. It's just that I haven't learned x or y YET. Most of the stuff I'm learning from them, I don't think most CS students would have learnt either. I'm incredibly lucky. The great thing about it all, is that I also don't have the rules instilled in me, which they have. Which (I think) is why I'm sometimes able to come up with more elegant solutions to problems than they are. I always say, "I'm not smarter than them, but I may be more creative". Though the research agency asked if I had a degree, it was never an issue for them. The interesting thing is that the companies that I had spoken to who were adamant that their engineers had degrees where doing the least interesting and challenging stuff. The really interesting stuff, people would ask why I don't have a degree, but once they saw the history of work, and example of my code, that was it. It never came up again. So, I think it might depend on what type of developer you are. If you're going to work for digital agencies, it might matter. If you're going to work for people without a technical background (who don't understand that a degree maybe doesn't mean that much), you might need one. If you're able to teach yourself enough to be more than dangerous, make a few really interesting and challenging projects come off, and most importantly, surround yourself with people you can continue to learn from, I think you'll be ok. It seemed to me, when I was interviewing, that the importance of a degree was in inverse correlation to your expectations. |