It's a myth that you can work without a degree, you'd never get a job interview in the first place. Seems to be mostly a US myth by the way, makes sense because degrees are crazy expensive there.
You're on point that there is a personal bias. Developers without degrees congregate together where they can, while developers with degrees congregate together to other places. There is a major self selection.
Saw a lot of the first when I was doing contracting in the UK, saw a lot of the later as permanent in tech companies. If you're interviewing for google you're way more likely to have 2 stanford majors in the interview panel than 2 developers without format education.
However, you can't learn or get a do over on getting in with the right social group. That's why so many "successful" people come from ivy league schools even though some of them seem to be pretty dumb. It's more about getting into a rich and powerful social group than getting an education. Once you're in with that group you have a very high chance of success as long as you're not a total fuck up.
I don't think a degree helps. I have seen plenty of very avg software developres, i wouldn't wanna have on my team, with degrees
How do I know it's not a myth? I have a software architect title, having moved my way up to here from QA.
One of the staff developers I work with has a degree in Physics. So does a senior operations engineer.
The common figures (google/facebook for examples) are typical college graduates from a very top school, who happened to drop in the last year of bachelor or master to found a company, sponsored by their university network and connections.
By the way I was talking having having a formal education versus no formal education and you're trying to move the conversation to dropouts. Dropping in the last year of a top US school (because you were given half a million dollar to form a company) qualifies as having a formal education.
What about three years?
Two?
One?
We know zero higher education doesn't meet your standard, and 3.5 years does, so I'm trying to figure out where you draw the line.
Knuth, Dijkstra, Kernighan, Ritchie, etc. all had degrees, although some are non-CS because CS degrees weren't a thing back then. Linus Torvalds, Dave Cutler, and Theo de Raadt all have degrees. The only hardcore coder (i.e. not a business person) without a degree I can think of is John Carmack.
There's also some absolutely incredible developers who come from non-traditional backgrounds that would not even be considered by this requirement.
While it's most likely currently the case where finding a job without a degree is hard, I don't think a hard requirement for a degree should be a valid means of evaluating job applicants.
I recently got a job as a software engineer without a degree. And I can get plenty of interviews.
Developers really don't realize how bad they have it. If you have friends who passed to be doctors, nurses, lawyers, they can all have a much easier and longer career.
You will see what are your prospects after 15 years of development, if you were not driven out of the industry, it's grim.
I've been a software developer for 30 years now, and never got a degree. I do have friends that are doctors and lawyers, and I prefer my career path to theirs. I started working and earning at 18, rather than going through 8 years of expensive schooling. All these years later (your 15 years doubled), I'm still in-demand, still earning reasonably well, and don't experience the levels of stress or work the long hours my doctor and lawyer friends do.
But hey, when I was young, it was just doctors and lawyers who earned big money. Now it's doctors, lawyers, and software developers, so that's a huge gain for software! And still, only about 75% or so of software developers have degrees at all, let alone eight years of school and two degrees like are required to be a doctor or lawyer.
I've spent the last month interviewing for new "Senior Java Developer" positions, and I can assure you, having a degree does not mean one's prospects are automatically good. Or that one know what one is doing, even.
My "prospects after 10 years of development" are going to be "figuring out what to do now that my house is paid off and I don't need to make half as much as I do anymore". Compare those to a doctor's prospects after 10 years of college: "Time to start making money for the first time!"
I've never noticed if anyone on my teams had a degree or not.
Those that talked about having a degree often lowered the team's velocity and were the weakest members on the team.
Anecdotal but seems to be common among my friends/advisors.