So what do you do if you lack a degree and professional experience?
Which means getting the experience somehow. Unpaid work is one (expensive) way of doing it, but so is getting into a related position and working your way across. QA is potentially a good path for this: hired to do simple things without the degree requirement, move into test automation, move across into development. Then you have it on your CV.
I agree that if you can hold out for a dev job, do that and save a year or two getting to the same place. If you really can't get a dev job and need the income, get a QA Automation job and start migrating early by asking to fix small bugs yourself, or work on the automation tooling.
At a smaller company, working on the build system and QA automation tooling might be more interesting and get more attention than what you would do as a jr software dev.
That said, it doesn't have to be a degree from Stanford or Berkeley, it can be from pretty much any accredited institution. Typical path forward here is community college for a couple of years and doing the general education requirements, then transferring to one of the state schools to finish a degree in a STEM subject (typically math, cs, ee, or physics)
Anyway, at least here on the East Coast, I find that many (most?) companies don't have a strict requirement regarding a degree. At least, not if you have real world experience. Maybe it's more crucial if you're going for your first job.
It still is and same for the other tech hubs.
The tons of complaints are likely from people who have no degree AND no experience and want to break into the industry and the 100k jobs. Of course, they have troubles, for good reasons.
Simple maths; For every experienced HN dev, there are 100 redittors with nothing who wants in.
When you have neither, getting a job in uncertain, there are many variables outside of your control. But getting a degree is completely within your control so it is the better choice of your time. Given the monetary constraint ($3,600 / year for community college (x2) and $7,500/year (x2) for state college) From my experience the job you will get in year 4 (and during the summers of year 3 and 4) will pay you more and offer better advancement than if you had started working in year 1 and not pursued a credential.
If you already have experience, then you also already have a network of people who have worked with you and know what you can do, and getting a job is a matter of finding the person in your network who will vouch for you.
Strangely though, I've accumulated 3 associate degrees (general education, computer programming, and high performance computing) over the years as well. Somehow, with all that, nobody ever mentions that I never finished my bachelors degree.
Not sure if it's possible to replicate that career path these days or not. I may just be the product of a specific era of history.
So, I'll have to disagree about the no degree + experience. No degree + no experience is a very tough spot though. Should still be possible though. As others have stated will probably need an entry level-ish position first and then impress the right people and move across. A bootcamp might also be possible.. Companies do hire right out of there, so with the right aptitude and performance in the bootcamp I can see that gaining a foot in the door somewhere.