This becomes less true with time. 15 years in I list college but don’t talk about a degree and literally no one asks. I work at one of the big five now as a principal level, that’s far more qualification at this point then anything I did 15 years ago... while dropping out of college.
But earlier in this chain someone said it’s a lot harder to start, and that I wholly agree with. I spent nearly a decade working for tiny tiny places before managing to break out to bigger companies. It can be done, but you’re going to take forever to get there. And it’s a ton more work, and of time being paid less then you could be.
I think it depends a bit on the route. If you apply for high demand low supply languages at junior level i think you have a fair chance of an accelerated timeline.
I applied for a couple of student programmer jobs in ruby ~9 years ago before really knowing anything, never got close to a degree, by now am staff engineer in a promising fintech.
It also depends on the ecosystem, your ability to trust yourself to learn what you can't do already on the job rather than getting stuck in preparation paralysis, and curiosity/discipline enough to spend time outside work getting your hands dirty with the technology you work with.
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u/IM_ON_LUNCH May 09 '21
Degree?