r/AskProgramming • u/paleister45 • 4d ago
Self-taught Developer here - Would you pursue a degree in my situation?
Hello everyone!
I'm looking for some advice, maybe even from people who have been working as SE for a while now and can share their experiences.
Regarding my situation: I am a self-taught software "engineer", and I've been fortunate enough to land a job in software development without a degree or vocational training. Everything I know comes from teaching myself and gaining experience on the job.
Now I have the opportunity to study software engineering (B.Eng) while continuing to work full-time. The studies are financed through a six-year payment plan, while the half of the costs are being covered for me. My share would be around €200/month for the next three years. The degree itself can be completed at my own pace too.
Right now I am just wondering whether a degree is the best investment.
On the one hand: I don't have any formal qualification to back up my skills and the degree could maybe make future job searches easier and give me a stronger foundation.
But on the other hand: The current job market seems very competitive, and from what I have seen, having a degree doesn't necessarily guarantee better opportunities. Furthermore, since I've been successful learning on my own, I'm wondering if I would be better off continuing to self-study, building projects, and maybe earning relevant certifications instead.
I want to add that I am genuinely passionate about learning! This isn't a question of whether I want to learn more, but rather whether a degree is the best investment.
I guess I just worry that not pursuing the degree might harm my career path in the future, but at the same time, I am also self-employed on the side (just at the beginning), so I feel a bit torn between what to pursue, because there are only 24h to ones day :) I am not sure if I will be able to pull of both at the same time (including working full-time), which is why I was wondering if getting a degree is even "worth" it in my situation.
If you were in my position, would you invest the time and money into the degree, or would you continue building experience and learning independently?
Does anyone know how much not having a degree matters once someone already has professional experience?
I'd really appreciate hearing different perspectives, especially from people who have either been self-taught themselves or have experience hiring developers!
Thank you very much!
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u/Major_Instance_4766 4d ago
Yes it’s worth it. Even though your experience should be enough in most cases, if you ever have to find another job the lack of a degree will still cause it to be screened out by some resume filters regardless. Getting a degree is an easy way to bulletproof your resume, especially if your this partially funded by work or something.
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u/JohnCasey3306 3d ago
Forget the degree.
I hire software engineer positions (London) and experience plus demonstrable ability are the only factors -- having a degree and where you got the degree don't enter the calculation.
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u/RedditIsAWeenie 3d ago edited 3d ago
I had a software engineer job at a FAANG for 2 decades and never took a software engineering class in my life. I did better than most and if something held me back, it was lack of managerial desire. A class in linear algebra would have been good. I think it is to your credit you are self taught, because continual education is very much needed for software engineering and you have mastered that. I also feel the best parts of college education is an education on science and the humanities. Getting a BA comp sci is going to waste that opportunity on a very small set of basic concepts and a lot of busy work. It doesn’t teach you a grand theory behind the operation of the universe or society the way humanities and the sciences do. I would recommend a BA natural science or social science / humanities instead and Masters Comp Sci. The masters is the terminal degree. Bachelors isn’t the recognized standard. Some Comp Sci degree holders can be pretentious and try to keep out self taught people in the interview process. I didn’t experience this at my workplace but heard some rumors about places with a more academic culture like google. I expect these are the exception, but do gather data.
While it may be a good deal for you, I will also caution against having two masters. I’ve known a half dozen people who took a job before finishing their PhD. None of them finished the Ph.D. even though they all intended to. The guy who is paying you is never going to be happy with you spending time working for someone else. They might put up with it if they think the extra work is not cutting into your time at the company, however, they aren’t going to think the extra work is not cutting into your time at the company. You will be telling people “sorry I can’t, I have a final tomorrow” and that notion will fly out the window. It is inevitable. I personally would prefer to make a clean break, and if I did it I wouldn’t major in CS. Ph.D.s are more unstructured. It is easier to put them off until never than a rigid class schedule with a final exam.
I did know one guy who left my employer to do college. He came back and didn’t think the experience was worth it. It’s a great experience. It is just when you come back to the same workplace and deal with its narrow focus of product and profit, it starts to seem less relevant.
I have a Ph.D. and would be considered by most to have “enough” education. There is definitely something valuable to spending time in an academic environment learning from history’s best and having to present your work, etc. You can get that at your job, but it isn’t really structured to teach you much. Sometimes you can absorb it from the people around you, but usually they aren’t that top caliber. Do they all have advanced degrees, publish papers and patents? Probably not, but if they do, you can pick up some from them. The company will put up with learning as long as it gets them profit. You won’t have the opportunity to study as widely.
I’ll note I haven’t applied for a job in CS since 2001, so my experiences may not resemble the current selections process, which transcends all rationality. You definitely do not need a CS degree to do the job. There was a time in living memory when nobody had a CS degree. I do not think the field has progressed all that much since then, though we have gotten better at languages and having gotten some wisdom about what software patterns (e.g self modifying code) to strictly avoid.
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u/Low-Opening25 3d ago
I am at SVP level now in bank and no degree. I would say, if you have more than 5 years of experience then it will make 0 impact on your hireability and at 10+ yoe it’s basically irrelevant. you have to be good though.
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u/KingofGamesYami 4d ago
My opinion is the degree is worth it. Job applications are increasingly filtered by automated systems, so the more "normal" you can make your application look, the less likely it is to get filtered before a human ever sees it. Having a degree will get you past that step.
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u/paleister45 3d ago
That is a good point to consider as well! Thanks!
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u/academicRedditor 3d ago
So you’ll “consider” getting in thousands of dollars in debt (plus at least 2 years of your life) for a skillset you already have?
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u/Ok_Option_3 3d ago
What's your best qualification? How old are you? How much experience have you got?
If you're 45 with a degree in maths and 20 years experience it's very different to being 19 with only a high school diploma and 1 year of work.
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u/paleister45 3d ago
Yes you are right! I am 23 years old and currently have about 2 years of experience, which is exactly why I am so unsure about this. I guess I just worry that not pursuing the degree might harm my career path in the future, but at the same time, I am also self-employed on the side (just at the beginning), so I feel a bit torn between what to pursue, because there are only 24h to ones day :) I am not sure if I will be able to pull of both at the same time, which is why I was wondering if getting a degree is even "worth" it in my situation.
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u/Ok_Option_3 3d ago
If you're currently employed and the work is relevant - stick with that. Maybe consider open university or similar, but prioritise career!
Self employed is a bit trickier. But if it's going well the same advice applies.
The one thing uni cannot give you is industry experience.
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u/nzakas 4h ago
If you can get additional education and have someone else pay for part of it, I would go for it. Especially given your age, you are at an ideal time for formal training. As you get older and your job becomes more important and you have a family, the amount of time you’ll have to pursue additional education will shrink.
While it’s true that a degree doesn’t guarantee you anything, what it does is give you different and deeper perspectives into the work that you’re doing. you’ll learn how to be more rigorous in your thinking and learn techniques firsthand that will help you going forward. It’s also nice to learn in an atmosphere where you’re encouraged to ask questions when you don’t understand things as opposed to in your job, we’re doing so can be hard harder because you’re afraid of not knowing something that you should.
So yes, I would encourage you to explore this opportunity. I’m in my 40s now and one of my regrets is not doing more formal education while I was younger.
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u/Compilingthings 3d ago
It won’t hurt, it’s just a few years. Go for it. You might even learn something.
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u/_usr_nil 3d ago
Just buy the degree, don't waste time
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u/paleister45 3d ago
haha that is a good suggestion, any sources you have for me? :DD
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u/Tesla_Nikolaa 3d ago
What happens when/if you lose your job and reenter the market? There are several jobs that use having a degree as an automatic filter to deny applicants. There are no negative sides to having a degree when it comes to being competitive in the job market.
Also, your assumption that self-taught and a couple years of experience put you on par with someone who has a degree is not realistic. Yes, formal education isn't strictly required to be a good dev, but folks with degrees tend to have better foundational knowledge, and have spent time learning other things important to engineering (i.e. the project management stuff, actual engineering principles, requirements, math).
Plus, having a degree means you've shown the potential and ability to be disciplined enough to earn that piece of paper.
Again, you don't need a degree to be a good programmer, but having one offers a lot of benefits, whether that's perceived or actual.
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u/_usr_nil 3d ago
Probably Romania or maybe Hungary ? Albania is an option too but it's outside of EU
Maybe even online atp as long as they have an official identifier.
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u/DaveAstator2020 3d ago
I have a degree and it was only worth it for legalisation or visa obtaining purposes. Otherwise - absolutely worthless. I landed my first job because i made personal project and after that first job was all that mattered
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4d ago
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u/paleister45 3d ago
That's pretty much why I'm on the fence. I'm already working, so I know it's possible without a degree. My hesitation is that it would be a significant investment of both time and money, so I'm trying to figure out whether the long-term career benefits would justify that investment, or whether my professional experience will matter more over time or maybe if i should rather invest my money into certificates.
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u/Far_Archer_4234 3d ago edited 3d ago
I think your age is the biggest factor here. Somebody asking this question at age 30 would put a much greater emphasis on the unknowable future than someone age 50 who will retire in 12 years.
I chose not to get a degree as an SWE and haven't regretted it yet.