Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

86 pointsplatevoltage240 comments

tldr; skip to the --------

Last time I "Asked HN", I was in a very different place. Fresh out of a bootcamp, right at the peak, and subsequent collapse of the Covid hiring. It didn't go well. However, another HN reader turned me on to Upwork, and over the last 2 years, I've been building modest freelancing career.

I came from an automotive background where I made awful money, moved to the Bay Area, became a bike messenger in San Francisco because I didn't know what to do with myself, and once again made awful money.

I had been a hobbyist programmer for years by this point, so I got sucked into the bootcamp racket. The program was great. I got what I needed out of it, although the certificate wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

I landed an ongoing contract on Upwork, which I still work on which really changed everything for me. I also landed an internship at Akamai as a Cloud Support Engineer, which never resulted in employment, but I'm not sure it's the type of work that I really want to be doing. It was more of a foot in the door type thing for me.

Either way, I am now making a living off of software development. A lucrative living? no, but it works for my lifestyle.

Several years ago, we were all told "You don't need a degree bro, degrees are obsolete bro, companies only care about what you know".

I found out that this wasn't true the hard way, however now I at least have some professional experience to my name. The job market is bad for everyone right now. I'm not necessarily looking for a job ATM, but at some point, the grind and hustle of freelancing might either fizzle out, or I might just get tired of it.

Now that that's out of the way, here is my question...

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I've thought about doing an online CS degree. It seems like this can be done for less than 15 grand, and also doable while still making money.

Is this a bad idea? Is this a good idea? Is this necessary if I want to be employable in the future?

View on HN

There's a story that goes: A man was tasked with hiring an employee. He got hundreds of resumes. His friend looks at the stack and asks him "how are you going to decide among all those?" The man grabs half the stack, throws it in the garbage and says "Simple, I don't hire unlucky people".

Degrees matter when employers don't have the time and/or ability to make a reasonable decision for every candidate. They need ways to eliminate chunks of the applications. Illogical ways of eliminating candidates are acceptable because they are better than having no way. One method that's not completely illogical is to only look at candidates who have degrees.

You can get degrees for <15K. For a BSCS you can do WGU for 5/10K. For a MSCS you can do GaTech OMSCS for 7K. Those numbers are small enough that they're almost definitely worth it. But those also cost time, which you will have to decide for yourself if you want to spend.

> They need ways to eliminate chunks of the applications. Illogical ways of eliminating candidates are acceptable because they are better than having no way

And this is how Apple/Google end up rejecting candidates to work on open source libraries...despite the candidates being the very authors they are wed out as they haven't spent months preparing for the interview.

Is this referring to homebrew? On the one hand i get it, but on the other hand reversing a binary tree isn’t some crazy leetcode grind. Most people can figure it out in a few mins and i think its fair to reject someone who can’t

It's not one instance. Most people who have this happen to them don't tweet about it. Every instance could have a "well, you should have ______ better" stapled to it.

Here's another one that I already know exists off the top of my head -- the only thing I have to look up is the tweet url: https://twitter.com/tiangolo/status/1281946592459853830

I don't think is apple/google. This sounds like the kind of thing small companies do. I would be very surprised if that was FAANG

I am not a fan of leetcode interviews myself, but I don't think the FAANG process is that bad. I am interested in any specific examples of authors of projects being rejected from big-tech companies for a role where they would work on their own thing

I disagree with it being fair to reject someone who can’t reverse a binary tree. I’ve never had to do it in my 16 year career and it’s easily learned. You could literally teach someone in a few minutes.

No there's nothing fair into rejecting the author of homebrew (but he wasn't alone) to work on homebrew. It's beyond silly.

He wasn't rejected for a role working on homebrew. He was rejected from google for an unrelated role

> answer by himself: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...

If you are referring to the author of HomeBrew

https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...

He admitted later that Google was probably right for not hiring him.

Well, perhaps not quite :D

> But ultimately, should Google have hired me? Yes, absolutely yes. I am often a dick, I am often difficult, I often don’t know computer science, but. BUT. I make really good things, maybe they aren't perfect, but people really like them. Surely, surely Google could have used that.

But he did add some nuance to the situation

Google and Apple don't have degree requirements, there are many of us working there as engineers without any college, much less a CS degree.

Can you confidently say that they don't use degrees to rank candidates in any way?

oh, for L3 or entry level, I'm sure they do. But they didn't even ask me about a degree, in fact my boss didn't ask until a year after i'd been working for him.

So yes, there isn't a degree requirement, and for senior+ people, they don't care at all. For lower then that, I can't say, i'm sure it matters more the lower the level.

but do you have a degree? and if so, was it on your resume. The place where I always got stuck was getting that first call. In the few interviews that I've had, I've done okay. I've moved past the technical interview in every case, although besides my internship, I wasn't given an offer. I was wondering if they use degrees to rank applications.

>but do you have a degree

No degree. I left any mention of college off my resume, and only included the last 12+ years of relevant experience and was able to get an interview. I have also done extensive open source work though, as well.

Degree is required for H1B visa applicants.

Most relevant response yet. Thank you.

This is exactly the category that I'm in. A couple of years ago I applied to a large company, with a referral. 0-2 years experience and a non-specific bachelor's required. I got my rejection in 15 minutes, after business hours. My resume didn't even see human eyes. Did I mention I had a referral?

This is exactly it - I have been thrown out 3x with a referral because no degree. Almost all of these were Java shops doing absolutely fuck all in terms of innovation while having an engineering team of hundreds - it seems like the majority of coding roles are these design pattern and degree checkboxes with the slowest, most “enterprise” apps imaginable.

I have an unrelated question. I'm not a Java dev, so I don't really get this, but I keep hearing it. I've heard, and maybe this is an exaggeration, that "scrappy innovative startup types" avoid candidates with only long term Java experience, because that tends to show a dispassion for programming. Is there truth to that? Do Java devs learn Java in college, and just do Java from then on without expanding their knowledge outside of that ecosystem?

Lots of enterprise Java gigs are basically cobol 2.0. One client I had… the code was literally cobol that was translated to Java.

Very inflexible and formulaic coding that doesn’t tend to build up the person. If you stay a long time at a Java shop, make it clear you weren’t in that type of role.

I think a lot of the “steady, boring” software jobs are in .net and Java, and people tend to spend a long time in those roles, so they get used to the structures of their codebase and the company they work at. They get used to “this is the way things are done” even if there are hundreds of ways with different tradeoffs.

> “steady, boring” software jobs are in .net and Java

Amazon and AWS is built mostly on java

That sounds hard. I got my bsc and msc in cs in 2015 exactly because I was afraid of this.

I know maybe a couple of guys who've had successful careers in cs despite having no degree. Those guys are especially talented and industrious. Real rock stars. I'm an average slob in comparison and I feel lucky to have my papers, as I have a decent track record of getting interviews. Small local companies seem to respond the best to my resume. Big places and remote jobs seem to have a much higher bar to clear.

To be honest, Large financial organizations such as this one don't interest me much. I would rather work at a smaller company.

Interviewed on site with a referral. Ghosted

Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science (GA Tech OMSCS) is really good about letting you go as fast or as slow as you want. If you are sufficiently motivated (and life circumstances permitting, granted), it's very doable as a nights and weekends type of thing.

I did it over 5 years and it would consume all my free time during crunch periods. Definitely make sure your family is supportive - it’s like having a second part time job with occasional overtime.

Having said that - I believe many companies view OMSCS as a strong signal. It’s a difficult degree with high drop out rate.

How is the privacy on that? Have an aversion to being watched on camera, etc.

During exams you mean? They swapped to honorlock which seemed way better and less invasive than proctortrack. It’s a necessary evil unfortunately.

Someone mentioned going to a testing center, maybe it’s an option? Although they could put you on camera/facial recognition as well.:-/

I think you had to use the proctoring software. Some people had a dedicated USB stick and would just boot onto that for exams specifically. TAs have to review any flagged exams.

I'm pretty sure it's required for the degree's accreditation. Unfortunately, there is always a small percentage of people who will cheat if they can get away with it.

Yes in this world of AI in everything, hiring tooling that is dog shit is the reason someone should go to college? I'm not commentating in where you're right or wrong, just want to point out what an utterly horrid reality.

Come up with a better system and you will be rich. "Better" should be scalable, measurable, objective etc.

How about “just as good, without the human misery?”. Many shops are doing that, and have no problems hiring and retaining people.

It cannot be long before anyone can apply for any job, and everyone gets an "AI interview" that does the actual screening.

Not perfect, but far better than the current resume filtering.

I mean, we live in a day and age where an entry level administrative job requires a degree. Gotta make sure to keep us trashy blue collar guys in our place.

Except that trades probably make more money.

I was an autobody technician, and later. diesel mechanic. I make more now averaging 20 hours a week on Upwork.

Unless you are a business owner or a union member, you're probably not doing particularly well.

WGU course content is a complete joke- I would look negatively on that if I saw it

Well I hope you're not in charge of hiring people.

I’ve known managers who automatically throw out resumes where candidates graduated from Devry or WGU unless they have really impressive work histories.

And this is coming from someone who graduated from a no name state college.

That doesn't surprise me.

I am 50 and don’t have anything to prove. I’ve done my time at a “FAANG” and the only reason I’m not at another one right now is that they insisted on RTO.

Also I rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever work for any large company again.

I hear that. My 3 months with Akamai felt like the absolute best case scenario for big corporations. It was pretty good, but I am just not wired up for the corporate cringe that comes with any organization like this.

(yes I’m throwing up in my mouth while responding)

From the thousand-foot view, I actually saw a dynamic environment where operating within a matrixed organization and aligning cross-functional stakeholders were essential levers for driving scalable outcomes. While enterprise-level ecosystems inevitably present change management challenges, I found that viewing the experience through a lens of strategic growth and operational optimization made it incredibly rewarding.

ha ha, nicely done.

that's MBAspeak for those who don't recognise it.

been more than once in such bigcos that used it, heard the talk, e.g."we gotta get our messaging right", "don't rock the boat", "our culture / mission / vision / values", brainwashing-type promotional videos created by the corporate communications department being played, while everyone nods and beams fixed plastic smiles, as though it's a national anthem being played.

so i can recognise it.

MBAspeak is a descendant of Newspeak.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

Could you elaborate? I'm curious in which ways their course may be lacking.

I was a faculty member there for a few years and I completely agree.

The time sink is real, but (at least for me personally), there is a sense of accomplishment when I get a a credential that is rarely felt when completing a "project".

(I control how I learn and absent a professor being a dick and purposely setting up an exam that 3/4 of the class bombs, learning is a joy compared to the politics, power games and sometimes even incompetence encountered at "work").

I tried to apply to wgu but got stuck in some bureaucratic hell. Have a degree in an unrelated field. Also have ap credits from 20 years ago. Wgu demands I send them the ap credits but at this point there is basically no way to get them from the college board.

I feel like someone who has been employed in tech for 15 or more years should simply be able to test out of a lot of these requirements anyway.

Didn't the AP credits go towards the unrelated degree already? I doubt you can use them twice. If anything you should be able to use whatever course credit they gave you the first time as evidence of completing the course using your transcript from the first degree.

Wgu asked for my college transcript which listed the ap courses. After I sent them the transcript they asked for the ap scores.

Telling them they are 20+ years old, I have no way of getting them, and I am fine retaking the courses led absolutely no where.

weird, although college board is still around, if they aren't able to validate AP results, I don't know why they even exist.

So he went on to hire lucky people. They all left after a year. 6 had won the lottery, 10 had got rich betting on crypto and the other 12 had set up a business on the side and make more money from that.

He had learned his lesson: next time he would discard the other half of the applicant pile.

True enough, and given that no company under 1000 headcount bothers to verify bachelor's degrees, OP should just lie to get through the initial filter.

Funnily enough, I tried wording my Berkeley Bootcamp a little differently on my resume to be a little more ambiguous at one point in time. I got called out on that pretty quick. Not my a company, but by someone I had review it.

It's complicated. I work at a "target" software company (competes with FAANG on prestige, but not literally FAANG). I interview candidates for senior+ roles, approximately one per week. By the time a candidate gets to me, I read their resume only for icebreakers/small-talk, and I couldn't care less what their resume says otherwise. But, I also happen to know that our internal recruiters, who are the first line of screening, are quite honestly capricious, and they'll dump resumes for any little thing, including, unfortunately in your case, the lack of a degree.

OK well what did the person that whittled down the selection before you saw the one person left do. Of course you don't care when the vetting and choosing has already been done.

Sounds like the lesson here is to bypass the recruiter huh?

If you have the opportunity, getting your resume directly into the hands of a hiring manager is the biggest positive boost, bar none. But I recognize that having that option available or not is a matter of happenstance, on some big or small scale in one's life, more than anything else.

I am in the somewhat unique position where I can take those opportunities as they come as I'm earning money and staying afloat. I could stand to do more networking though.

HR sucking is how consulting firms get in and rent-seek

This is ALWAYS the lesson

> the lack of a degree.

Lack of a degree or lack of a C.S. degree?

It's a crapshoot, honestly. The internal recruiters definitely have a pattern in mind, and the more a candidate diverges, the more iffy their application becomes. Some of it is definitely luck, too.

I think you should ask yourself two related but separate questions:

1. Will the CS degree increase your knowledge and problem-solving ability faster than you could without it?

2. Will the credential add substantially to your credibility for hiring managers?

The answer to 1 is mostly about your level of self-discipline and ability to learn independently. If you need the stimulus of a structured environment and a peer group to learn at your best, then any accredited program will be helpful, and your ability to pass coding interviews will increase (with a lot of hard work beyond the curriculum).

The answer to 2 is pretty straightforward: unless your degree is from a tier 2+ school, the raw credential is of little value, and even tier 2 is not certain. To count, an online degree must be presented by the school as competitive with an on-site degree. Georgia Tech offers such a degree program as a tier 1 school, for example.

An unaccredited program is of no value whatsoever in answer to 1 or 2. So, avoid them at any price. You are looking at a 3-5 year project, no matter what, and this is probably a good time to do that. The market will take that long to sort itself out and to realize that vibe coding is NOT the miracle it seems.

I take issue with your idea that it is "tier 2+" that are the only programs that are worth it. When you make statements like that, or prognostications of that nature, you have to think about how it actually is in reality and not as the kinds of base opinions that are found in Reddit CS careers subs. I think this varies widely for employers and even within teams of large employers, depending on who is the person doing the hiring. Even at a simplistic level having a degree from a regionally accredited institutions will decide whether you pass the first HR screen, so it cannot be equivalent to no credential at all.

This just fails a basic real world sensibility test. Are you saying a CS grade from Montana State University that is a hiring manager at FAANG (maybe even the most famous one) is going to consider someone with a degree from Stevens or Florida Institute of Technology to be equivalent to someone without a degree? I don't know if you are aware but there many people employed CS grads that did not attend the top 3. Also, I don't know about tiers, but these rankings are largely based on research and not quality of undergraduate program or outcomes.

The idea of telling someone that doesn't have a degree that wants to know of if attaining a degree could likely help their career that they should not go if it is not "tier 2+," whatever that is, is just kind of malpractice. Georgia Tech is not the only school that offers such a degree that is equivalent to their in-person program. I would agree that you should choose a school that has a traditional program for which this online program is just a different modality, rather than one of these online-only predatory type of schools.

>Georgia Tech is not the only school that offers such a degree that is equivalent to their in-person program.

This, most state schools in most states offer such degrees now and have years now.

The competitive landscape in 2025 is not like it has ever been before for CS grads - and I graduated in 1996.

It would be “malpractice” to suggest anyone waste time on a CS degree from anything less than tier 2+ school. My degree is from a no name state college so I’m definitely not looking down on anyone.

That’s just conjecture without evidence. You have a degree so you’ve never experienced being turned down for not having one.

It’s not “conjecture” that today’s job market is worse for CS grads than it has been at any time since I graduated and you need every competitive advantage you can get. Doors aren’t going to open for you because you got a degree from WGU, Devry or some no name state college.

I can't tell whether this is intentionally or unintentionally hilarious because you add an additional conjecture with no evidence immediately afterwards. My experience would lead me to think that any accredited degree vs no degree would be an advantage, but I don't present it as fact, as you just did.

1. no. My CS fundamentals could always use work, but I know enough to know how to improve them on my own if and when I need to.

2. yes. this could just be my cynicism talking though.

I'm not looking at any unaccredited program. I already have one of those under my belt.

There are things you know, things you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know.

College is pretty good about the last category, but really if you went through syllabi, scanned through lecture notes, and paged through the reading materials listed, you're probably ahead of most students in that category.

That exercise alone will probably give you a good idea of the technical value of the education.

I would add that words don't have objective complete meanings. Words are indirect references to ideas and ideas are like raw marble in your head, carved into meaningful shapes by working with and manipulating those ideas.

If you bring out a word like "consistency", college is very much about shaping the idea behind that word into increasingly more crisp and formal meanings, especially meanings that can then interact with ideas behind other words like "atomicity" or "scale".

Even for someone with a degree in philosophy I think the last couple paragraphs are over-thinking things a lot here. I have never heard university described that way. The Rumsfeld thing about "unknowns unknowns" is clever I guess. :)

Your answer to 1 troubles me. A CS degree program greatly expands your toolbox BEFORE you need those tools. The problem I have with "when I need to" is how do you know now is the time? It's a chicken-and-egg thing. If an employer hears "I'll go learn that and get back to you" too often, you will not work there for long.

For 2, fair enough. What school will give you a BS degree for <15K?

I think you may be undervaluing effort and payoff of CS fundamentals, as well as overestimating payoff of the paper from an online degree.

(Caveat: If you'll be emigrating in the future a degree can make a difference for visas if recognized )

If you do it and actually apply yourself (as opposed to optimizing for points/effort) I guess you'll be on the up regardless of which (:

I wasn't undervaluing it. I was just answering the question. I've spent a lot of time on CS fundamentals. I can't say I've used a binary search tree in my every day work. If I anticipate this type of question in an interview, I'll need to go back and review. Thats all I meant.

They aren't talking about leetcode: https://teachyourselfcs.com/

I'll say yes. I am the only one in the company that has a degree (MSc compsci). I know stuff the others never heard of. Your exposure to obscure things in uni are really worth the time for deeper topics. I focused on machine learning and had classes like operations research, non-linear optimization or complexity theory & approximation algorithms and I kid you not, I could make use of these things quite a lot to find efficient issues for a harder problem.

If the course is just software engineering, don't bother imho. If it's compsci, do it. Do the hard stuff. You'll have an edge the others don't.

For context: I studied in Germany at a proper Uni and focused more and had quite the mathematical and theoretical curriculum. Not sure what the international situation is.

Also, yes, a paper helps. You have exposure to a variety of topics on a deeper level. That can come in handy!

That's something I found more and more as I get into my career

Stuff like programming languages, frameworks, tools all come and go throughout your career

Whereas the core concepts/theory you learn in a CS degree don't change from job to job

When I was in undergrad I wished we did more practical hands on work, but now later in my career I'm glad we didn't because its easy to self learn that stuff and it goes out of date anyway

Skip the easy stuff and spend your energy on the hard stuff is excellent advice for anyone doing a cs degree. The easy stuff you can google. The hard stuff is what will mold your mind into a sharp tool and you will never get the same chance to spend your time on it as you do in uni.

100%! I learned so much at a really high rate, I'll never ever have the time and focus to do that again, most probably. It felt really good to dig deep

That, and some subjects are really hard to learn at home/at job. Learning Linear algebra at home would be really hard, but learning some new programming language would work fine.

why is learning linear algebra at home hard?

no knowledge of this area, hence asking.

Yes, this is so true. Too many people just want the immediately useful information, but this is not what universities is for! In Uni we should learn things that can be relevant decades later. Not just learn the most modern tools that is currently used in industry. It should be coupled with that too, but not only. The short 2 year educations to learn CS basics are kind of like the fast food of learning. It gets you there, but something is missing.

No people want to get a job so they can make money to exchange for goods and services. First they need to be able to support their addictions to food and shelter.

Companies are looking for people who can immediately improve their bottom lines. Why hire someone out of college with no practical skills when they can hire someone for slightly more that already has practical skills?

It depends on your time scale.

As an employer we're not just looking for someone to fill a role now, we're considering the person's potential to grow and move onto more challenging roles.

As an employee money is clearly a driving factor, but other things also impact quality of life. Working conditions, work-life-balance, annual leave, scope for advancement, company structures etc all make a difference.

Yes money matters, but if you choose only based on that you end up in places where people (co workers and managers) only care about money. YMMV.

The average tenure of a software developer is 3 years. This is mostly because of salary compression where internal raises never keep up with the market and new hires come in making more than “loyal” employees. Companies don’t invest in their employees.

I’ve seen this personally in companies that had 20 people all the way to the US’s second largest employer. Not to mention, it’s much easier to get a promotion by changing employers than going through the internal promo process.

Unless you are working for a non profit, everyone mostly cares about money. Any halfway competent interviewee knows how to fake “passion about the mission”

I’m 50 now and I do value things more than money about my company. An equivalent position to what I have now pays 30%-40% more at AwS (been there done that) or GCP (I’ve turned down recruiters and managers). But I value autonomy, my real usable unlimited PTO, having influence on the company direction, work life balance etc.

I can make those choices. When you are young and just starting out you can’t and honestly you shouldn’t.

Thank you. Yeah, I would do Comp Sci. I wont say that I know everything about software development. Not even close, but I do think I'm in a position where I have the ability to continue to learn on my own. I mostly want the paper, but I'd be lying if I said I couldn't stand to drastically improve my CS fundamentals. Most of what I do is Typescript/Javascript, but I'm also into embedded development, for which I'm way less advanced at. I could really use some lower level training.

Do note that at least for me, we didn't do much coding or software engineering. I spent more time on proofs, theories and writing on paper than any code. The best I could describe it is that software engineering is kinda adjacent to compsci maybe? I think you can do more applied compsci and do stuff like embedded etc. and it might be different, I started uni 15 years ago

Community college near by probably has comp architecture and assembler classes, which fill out the low level knowledge.

As someone who has interviewed candidates for a FANG company in the distant past I can't say that degrees matter, but I can say that people I interviewed with degrees generally did better. There's a hidden bias in that this is only people who got through recruiters and recruiters are their own filter. Strong referrals usually guaranteed a phone screens. I think previous experience at a major competitor in the same tier or a degree from a top CS school were also meaningful, but I don't know how else they filtered.

There is a non trivial relationship between colleges and businesses, so you are likely to do many problems in college that are not terribly different from the interview questions. Additionally all of your peers have been interviewed/do interviews/do referrals and that does matter.

College students generally did not do incredibly well on practical problems, so I would expect a non college candidate to do really well on them.

Many of the best co-workers that I remember had physics degrees. In fact, it was so pronounced I personally consider a physics degree to be a top tier signal of programming ability, but that's my own personal prejudice.

If your degree isn't from a top 10-20 CS school it's probably not worth it if you have experience. If you can't make friends while doing the courses, then I don't think it's worth it. Going to a good college is much much much much more than a few lectures, some book reading, and some assignments. It is face to face time with world class experts, it's a culture, it's social, it's exploratory. You can potentially work on bleeding edge research or be introduced to things you never knew existed.

It sounds like your idea of what college is, is that it's a technical education rather than a liberal education. If that's true I think your perception of college is wrong.

There are some situations where a college degree really matters. If you want to apply for a work visa in a foreign country, a degree from a good college can potentially get your application a rubber stamp or lack of one could completely restrict you from it.

> I personally consider a physics degree to be a top tier signal of programming ability

Some CS programs have moved away from heavy maths requirements over the last 2 decades, outside a few maths-heavy specific CS courses.

Physics degrees still mean you have very decent maths, but CS degrees are not necessarily as strong a signifier of it.

I suspect that is the difference, particularly if you are actually working on tricky programming tasks.

>Physics degrees still mean you have very decent maths, but CS degrees are not necessarily as strong a signifier of it.

That and they necessarily have to learn a lot of CS just to do their own degree work. It's like wondering why cross country runners perform well at other sports too, their sport incorporates the 'hard' part of most sports, the running and endurance aspects.

> Many of the best co-workers that I remember had physics degrees. In fact, it was so pronounced I personally consider a physics degree to be a top tier signal of programming ability, but that's my own personal prejudice.

You're basically just using it as a proxy for general intelligence, the _average_ physics major's IQ is around 130.

I don't know about that. I feel like if big tech moved away from IQ test like questions like the MS/FB of old then there was a reason.

And that reason was legal precedent: it's illegal to administer an IQ test as a condition of employment. So they administer a disguised IQ test in the form of Leetcode questions instead.

No it isn't. Plenty of big companies administer IQ tests as a condition of employment.

I guess there are military aptitude tests. And I am curious about which big companies administer an undisguised IQ test to applicants.

It appears that an IQ test can be administered if it can be argued that a certain score is required to do the job, and the test is not simply a way to discriminate. It sounds like a court case waiting to happen though: how does one prove what score is required? Easier if your defense is "we never administered an IQ test, tour honor".

For knowledge work jobs there's no defense required. Again: gigantic, risk-averse corporations, household names, do IQ tests (or equivalent tests) for some of their positions. The Wonderlic company exists specifically to market these tests for job search programs.

The reason everyone doesn't test IQ is that it's not very useful, not that it's legally risky.

People think it is because there's an subtext that everybody would hire straight off IQ scores if they could, which supports a (frankly gross) biological essentialist argument a lot of edgy nerds are fond of. But the whole argument is fractally mythological.

Huh? They used to ask brain teaser like questions, not anything that I would consider to actually be an IQ test or really even all that close to one in a legal way.

That is exactly what I said.

The whole point is to have a test that is correlated with IQ, and does not look like an IQ test in a legal way.

Yep. IMO that's the way ANY degree is looked at (aside from Medical, Law, etc.. you know the drill).

You want a lower level administrative job? You better have a degree so we know that you're not stupid. Now you get to pay off your loans with 20 bucks an hour.

I worked at a fortune 50 company that hired engineering graduates with masters degrees as contractors to break down cardboard boxes and manage stockrooms.

The degree was just a fancy filter if could read and write. If they worked out, they would be eventually hired direct into less mindless tasks.

Not all of the contractors were worth retaining.

Hah, I also noticed that. For some reason, ex-army programmers really excel in their junior years (or sometimes even just months), too. Do you think it's the attitude towards problem-solving?

"ex-army programmers really excel in their junior years"

My feeling is that they're just built different, military, especially in US will either teach you or make you disciplined (not something I'd say about my country, you'll learn how to get hazed and drink). If you have a task, well, you better solve it quick, no distractions.

I really don't know. This is spitballing, but I think maybe physicists are clever analysts while CS people are prone to "clever" implementations.

I remember thinking "oh, you understand, like actually understand" to them in particular, so maybe it's that they spend more time understanding before doing.

I understand the concept of "liberal education". Perhaps if I lived in a country that values having an educated populous, I would go that route. The truth of the matter is that I am a 41 year old adult in the USA. It's not in the cards for me.

In my experience those with math degrees too. Maybe the structured methods of analysis and problem solving.

In my experience, math majors can do some pretty incredible acrobatics (in a good way), but their documentation, systemic performance awareness, and overall design sense often lag behind. These are things they usually pick up outside of the degree, and they have to break some bad habits learned during it (e.g., single-character-variable soup).

I agree with a sibling comment that physicists often seem to make the best coders, for some reason.

My hypothesis: it's because physicists are rigorously trained to model real-world systems directly. What would be considered an "advanced" modeling problem to most would be an intro problem to a physics student.

Math is absolutely related, but I think the secret ingredient is "mathematical maturity" — the ability to fluidly jump between layers of abstraction. Mathematicians are good at this too, but physicists go a step further: they are trained to ground their abstractions in concrete physical phenomena.

Mathematicians ground systems in axioms, sure. But physicists have to tether models back to reality — to processes and measurements — which turns out to be exactly the skill set that makes for good programmers and system designers.

Huge generalization, obviously.

But personally, I've noticed my own programming ability increases the more physics I learn. Physics gives you a systematic framework to reason about complexity — and physicists get the luxury of a "relatively simple" universe compared to fields like chemistry or biology. They're working with rich systems described by just a few tightly-coupled parameters. And the kicker: a lot of those systems are 100% repeatable, every time.

That kind of structure — and the habit of respecting it — is priceless for engineering.

As below, Physics and Maths degrees tend to have high entry requirements, large amounts of hands on (classroom or labs) hours, lots of highly focussed students. I observed this while studying Electronic Engineering, which I would say is similar but more practical and with lower entrance requirements. I'm not sure where computer science would fit into this as it's a newer discipline with less stringent core requirements. Other IT courses may be less rigorous and include people that are less focussed on their education relatively.

As above I would say that the physics students I know are often the ones going furthest in their careers either in research, computing (know a few at google), consulting e.g. PWC etc

I’ve also found this to be true. And math degrees.

> but I can say that people I interviewed with degrees generally did better

I can also confirm that.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that people with a formal degree are on average better prepared to interviews.

But sadly, it has absolutely no correlation with work performance. Zero, none.

In fact, I can say that the overwhelming majority of non graduates did far better on the job: more motivated, stays longer, hungrier to learn and prove themselves.

That's funny, one of the best programmers I've ever know had a physics degree

I think those type of people just have really good analytical thinking

I'm a grad student and I help grade exam papers of mostly entry level ML related subjects. And boy, the aerospace and physics department folks are ahead of the curve by a significant amount. I guess four years of strong mathematics does that to you.

Physics degrees are the low-key blanket STEM degree.

You can find people with physics degrees working in pretty much any technical field.

I can't speak to whether an online degree is worthwhile.

What I can say is that the more you fill out your resume with work experience, the less the degree will matter to non-FANG employers.

I suppose it depends on the kind of programming that you do, but not having a CS degree hasn't held me back at all. By this point I've got over 16 years of experience I think, and I don't even bother listing much about my education other than having a BA and the university I got it from.

If you're thinking about doing something else to have some variety on the resume, authoring and maintaining an open source library, or becoming a contributor or maintainer of one is always a nice addition to the resume. Unlike getting a degree, it's free to do (time aside) and can show a different kind of experience than you might be getting now through freelancing.

I guess I should have been more clear in my post. I don't have any degree.

Pretty sure leaving the education off of your resume entirely is fine. Don't lie if they ask, but as others have said, once you get experience under your belt, most employers tend to stop caring about it altogether. Even if it is listed as a requirement on the job posting, hiring managers care way more about competence than they do a fancy piece of paper.

Yeah. This is what I've been told. The issue is that getting your resume into the hands of a hiring manager feels increasingly difficult.

The past year or so has probably been the worst market for developers since 2008. It's been picking up again, or at least it was for a bit.

If you haven't yet, one thing that would be worth doing is working with a recruiter. There's plenty of bad ones out there, of course, but a good one will have direct access to the people hiring. If you're willing to work on-site, even better, as that will significantly reduce the number of people you're competing against for attention.

I hope you find some of this useful, and either way, I wish you luck!

You don’t have a degree at the moment but in three to six months you can have a CS degree if you think it’s worth your time. It’s been done in three months.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25467900

I started my professional career without a degree a long time ago. I did a few years of Comp.Sci. (and math) but didn't finish. I then finally got the extra credits to finish years later so I'm a proud bachelors of compute science (it did feel good the decades ago when I completed it).

Once I had real experience getting a job was not a problem. That said, getting some specific job at a specific company might be hindered by not having a degree (or even not having a CS degree).

I would say:

- A degree in Comp.Sci. is useful for what you learn not just for the paper.

- Sometimes the paper matters. Some companies will only hire people with a degree. Others you'd need to be a superstar to work around that requirement.

- Sometimes the degree can impact your pay. E.g. if you work for the government or a university.

- A degree can impact things like immigration. E.g. it's much easier for me as a Canadian to work in the US because my degree means I can get a TN. Some countries will give preference to immigrants with degress.

- You can meet interesting people and make connections during your studies.

Thank you for your response.

I'm not really interested in specific companies. I'm really NOT interested in FAANG type companies. I have however seen many listings where I was like "this fits my knowledge and interests perfectly other than the degree requirement"

- While I'm interested in the paper, I absolutely love learning everything I can about computers. I'm super neurodivergent, and have trouble learning things I'm not interested in. Gen Ed is why college didn't work out for me 20 years ago.

- There's always going to be jobs that require specialized degrees. I understand that. I just don't want to have my resume thrown in the trash when I apply for an entry level front end web dev job.

- Totally, I'm not terribly interested in university jobs, and this seems like the worst time ever to work for the government

- Doesn't apply to me, but I appreciate you sharing your experience.

- Thats true, but I'm in no place to actually go sit in a classroom right now.

I don't regret getting a degree fwiw. My degree was 100% focused on math and comp.sci. (not in North America where they force you to take other subjects).

If you have 20 years of experience I wonder if there are options for you to have that recognized towards a degree or even to get accepted into a Masters program (where presumably you'd have to make up some required courses but still).

> If you have 20 years of experience I wonder if there are options for you to have that recognized towards a degree

Isn't what those scam "universities" do? Sell you a diploma based on your "life experience"?

Point being, a degree awarded like that may not have any value.

> Point being, a degree awarded like that may not have any value.

If it gets your resume past the process that filters out applicants without degrees then I’d say it has value.

I definitely don't have 20 years of experience. I did learn some HTML when I was 14 and made a geocities page though. It had animated GIFs and everything. I even made some stuff with Macromedia Flash ;).

I see. I assumed. It's hard to give generic advice since everyone's situation is unique. One thing is you can try just taking a few courses. You could consider studying something completely different. Or you can use the vast resources online to learn something new (e.g. Coursera?) and see what you think.

AI could be changing a lot of what we do as well.

I wouldn't spend time and money on something that's iffy. A real science bachelors degree is at least 3 years of fairly hard work. You could do that part-time over a longer period. That's not going to necessarily make you a great programmer - a lot of that is just doing it and learning. Which you don't need a degree or a bootcamp for. But it's going to be somewhat limiting not to understand the "science" part, how much depends on the specific role.

I work with someone who got a diploma, got hired, is doing great, and also going back to school to finish his degree part-time. I also studied part remote part on site to finish the courses I needed while having a full time job and other responsibilities. It's tough but doable.

I feel like I should clarify. I am currently working part time on a contract basis for 3 different companies. I'm also running a small SaaS.

I'm at the point where if there is a tool or technology I need to learn to solve a specific problem, I can do that in a reasonable time amount of time.

My post was to see if getting a degree is worth it in an age where they are becoming more important to get past the recruiter than they were 5+ years ago.

Wow lol are you me? Flash 5 was my jam back when i was 12.

Also i noticed your tube related username (i assume). I used to manage a guitar shop and done a little work on tube gear but mostly stuck to pedals and stuff (much safer)

"this seems like the worst time ever to work for the government" - might be some satisfying and important opportunities in 4 years time sorting out the most horrendous mess. (assuming you guys actually get to choose someone different then ;) )

I was self taught for 10 years in the field and found a program that offers a Master's degree with work experience accounting for the undergrad. I didn't take calculus or stats in my undergrad and that has caused some headaches in completing the degree, but the amount of stuff I was exposed to in such a short period of time was incredible.

Very quickly into the program I was stuck by just how unethical it was for me, with no experience and certification to make guarantees and promises to an employer who didn't know better. In most fields the knowledge worker could be held liable for making this kind of "contract" (think lawyers, electricians, doctors, etc.).

You can be driven and motivated. You might have learned a ton on your own. You cannot know what you don't know. People in these comments will trip over each other to explain that education is subjective and you won't use any of that stuff in the real world. They have stories about wasted classes and dusty academics. The reality is much more boring.

* Lectures are very effective ways of provide a curated bit of information.

* Structured practice and verification (homework and grades) are quick ways to ensure that the start of learning has occurred.

* Working with your peers will likely expose strengths and weaknesses in your existing understanding of the subject matter. This often helps everyone involved.

* Reading academic publications and textbooks helps to standardize the shared understanding of the subject and ensures that future efforts to expand the field or solve hard problems are more effective.

You said in your post that you're not sure where to go with your career and your opportunities aren't evident to you --- go to school and give yourself some deeper knowledge. It'll help you figure out how to navigate the field.

A masters with no undergrad? I didn't even know that was a thing.

In the UK there's this :) https://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/qualifications/f66. No entry reqs at all. I've a friend who for various reasons back in the day got no secondary school (high school) qualifications i:e no GCSEs or A levels, no undergrad either, but did an apprenticeship and ended up as a software dev , did an Open University MSc and ended up with a Comp Sci Phd ! Open University always seems fantastic to me but maybe US employers would expect Americans to have an American qualification? Regarding your original Q to do the degree at all, absolutely, worth it for the mental development, also there are some great jobs out there that do require a degree and a shame to miss out. Having taken part in a sift for junior developer positions, the applications we get have a lot of cr*p, many people with bootcamps plus half-arsed / plagiarised GitHub. Those with a Real comp Sci degree plus some experience really do stand out.

It requires an undergrad, just not in computer science.

oh okay. thats different

> Is this a bad idea? Is this a good idea? Is this necessary if I want to be employable in the future?

I wish anyone could really tell you. I mean, I sure don't know, and I've been a hiring manager in SF for years. I've done countless interviews, read countless resumes, all that. I can tell you what I would do if I were trying to bootstrap my way into the industry, though:

1. Do something difficult and unusual in technology, and do it in public. Basically set a goal that sounds crazy to achieve, something that would require an unreasonable amount of effort and time, and then go do it and publicize it. Note that getting a degree is difficult and time-consuming, but not really very unusual or impressive.

2. Interact with real people in technology as much as possible. Not just "networking", but actually immersing into the tech community, learning all the events and meetups and hackathons and doing as much of that as possible. Note that a degree will probably help you meet a lot of other students, but not necessarily active tech professionals.

As with all challenging goals, my real goal would be to spend a certain amount of time on them every day, taking whatever the next step is.

I am quite confident that if you put as much effort into this path as you would a degree, you will land a better job, sooner than the other way.

Thank you. I'm not really looking for a job at the moment, I'm just having what is maybe an irrational fear of being made obsolete. I've hit the point of no return. I've been out of the automotive game for a while now, and I think I might rather die than go back to that.

Maybe I've done too much doomscrolling on Linked In.

As with most things in life, small iterative improvements are usually the most reliable path. You've already got contract work, so try to get more of that, maybe you can get a fulltime job with one of those clients, now you have a resume item, etc. It's the same for most everyone - we get a little experience, a bit of a resume, and one day we get another step on the ladder, and one day another.

Actually doing a whole degree program is just so much freakin' work and money for a single line on your resume that I can think of a lot of equally time consuming things that would have a better payoff. I've done night classes too and - whew. Never again.

Yeah. So far the iterative approach has been working out. I haven't really tested the waters in a while.

I just wish that "single line" wasn't such a deal breaker.

It is indeed unfortunate, and for what it's worth I think you are not the person people are generally trying to filter out by requiring a degree, given your skills and track record. So you probably would benefit from meeting more people in the industry in person. It also sounds like you've made good choices so far in getting your new career started. I hope you get everything you're going for.

Yeah you're probably right. Maybe I'll do what I'm doing for the time being, and start spending time applying once when or if the market gets better. I was in a much different spot last time I sent out an application. I've learned a lot since then.

That seems a lot like "draw the rest of the owl"[1] unfortunately. How will an otherwise relative newcomer know what would be considered challenging, how to go about making it happening, and that they can make it happen?

[1]: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl

If I were in this situation, and the goal is to draw an owl, and I can spend a year on it, then I'm going to spend an hour tonight looking at owls and maybe doodling a bit. I'm not going to worry about getting the owl perfect right away. Maybe next week I'll get super into owl feet, and the week after into learning good drawing posture. At some point I'll definitely be attending some meetup of nature-drawing enthusiasts.

I'm going to combine a general direction with a lot of time and horsepower and exploration and I will end up with a great owl drawing at the end. The odds are that I end up drawing the owl after only a few weeks because it's not as hard as I thought, but I discover some other really cool goals with a better payoff by then.

There's a lot of alpha in spending an unreasonable amount of time on interesting goals.

To answer your questions directly:

> How will an otherwise relative newcomer know what would be considered challenging

Just pick something that sounds challenging to you! You will learn a lot about what the scene considers challenging/interesting as you go. You can always update the goal.

> how to go about making it happening

Research. Start with stupid questions about the parts that are initially apparent. Keep a list of things that you don't know how to even begin to tackle, and over time, deep dive into items on the list. You will find that the resources/tricks/approaches you have grows as you go.

> and that they can make it happen?

You just have to really, really believe in yourself and in what you're trying to do. If you keep your health, that is all you really need.

I got a Masters in Software Development, part time evenings, studied over 3 years. I don't think it's strictly necessary, but in my experience, it doesn't harm your prospects. I think it's nice to have the combination of experience and education, personally. Certainly don't underestimate the commitment if you study in your spare time. Also, you may enjoy the course, work on new things, meet new people - all can be valuable in their own right.

Startups may be less picky. If you want to work in startups it's probably more important to get involved in startup networks. I can't really say more than that as I don't work in startups.

For many other software jobs, a degree will be required. This is an applicant filter if nothing else. These places (banks, insurance companies, manufacturers, any number of business where software enables what they do but is not the product they sell), can be boring but they can be great places to work if you want boring. Regular hours, low stress, good benefits. They will almost all require degrees. From which institution might be less important as long as it's reasonably legitimate.

Exactly what I'm thinking right now. Thank's for sharing.

I'm pessimistic about the future of software development careers in the US.

Not only are you competing with lower cost people from around the world, you will increasingly begin competing versus vibe coding (at the entry level) and the never-sick-but often-wrong AI (replacing the entry and lower mid-level).

There's also, apparently, a glut in the market from all the people stockpiled during Covid and subsequently made redundant.

In the flip side, if you have a really strong network of people wanting to hire you if not for the B.S. checkmark, it'll probably be a good move

In the AAA games industry, a portfolio speaks much louder than a degree. Junior software engineers with five simple, well-coded games (such as Asteroids, Lunar Lander, etc) on GitHub stand head and shoulders above people fresh out of university without a portfolio in the recruitment process. Senior software engineers with experience developing large AAA titles are in much higher demand than those with a PhD in game systems, such as AI or networking, which is practically non-competitive. So I'd say the degree doesn't matter, at least in this corner of software engineering.

I entered the gaming industry a long time ago as a software engineer without a computer science degree. Later, I thought I'd get one online, just as you are considering. It was reasonably cheap compared to my income, and I thought I had the extra hours for an evening online course. But I found it to be very demoralizing. I'd be micro-optimizing containers in AAA game engines, shaving microseconds off operations by reducing CPU cache misses on target consoles in the morning, and earning a 60% grade on my JavaScript game in the afternoon, because I didn't follow the method shown in class. I also did poorly in CS math, especially with formal proofs, which were a lot of fun for math enthusiasts but grating for me, being an expert in game math and graphics math at the time. When my fourth semester rolled around, I found only one or two modules to be somewhat useful, while others, such as HTML web design, had no bearing on my profession. I dropped out about halfway through my degree, leaving me with a lot of money spent but nothing to show for it. I could have forced myself through it, but it would have been on pure discipline (which is easier for some than it is for me!)

My advice is: don't get a CS degree because it's doable. Get it if you need it for something, like if you wish to enter a specific industry that requires a meaningful academic experience, such as research. Your degree will then serve a purpose. Otherwise, you might feel like you're not getting much out of it, and it won't be easy to justify carrying through. Especially if you're already performing at a level significantly higher than what a degree puts you on. Or maybe the purpose a degree could serve for you is fun - perhaps the academics would be rewarding for you in a way that doesn't have to flow into your work, or you get networking opportunities that a good uni/college affords. But my view is: it's a significant commitment, so there has to be a meaningful, clear reason to do it. Otherwise, it will be all cost and no return.

Makes sense. Thank you for sharing your experience.

I'm involved in several projects, as well as being the sole developer for a SaaS that I co-own (I make exactly 0 dollars from it right now). I have to solve all kinds of difficult problems, which excites me to no end. I can see how I could have the same demoralizing experience you did.

In my bootcamp, I got a D on my portfolio because I didn't follow directions. I've been praised many times after the fact on this same portfolio.

I'm not an academic person at all, so maybe this would be a slog for me. I did get an A+ in said bootcamp though, not that that matters.

At the moment, I feel like a degree is necessary for any job I would want to get given the job market. Call it future proofing if you will.

Similar experience here but slightly different as I went to a top tier uni, but was also a decent coder before I started college. There was a lot of 'theory vs practice' snobbery where the former was emphasized above all, to the point of absurdity. Get ready to learn the secret knowledge of academia CS like that that functional languages are secretly the solution to everything - especially purely functional - no variables or even mutable state. And of course the secret to writing bug proof programs is to mathematically prove them - just ignore the fact you're simply kicking the can to new bugs, and the domain of programs you can realistically prove is minuscule. I would not hire 95% of my graduating peers. You're not going to enjoy your time.

If you were going to get a degree I'd get it in something where computer science is applied rather than the 'thing' itself - e.g. electrical engineering (or even aerospace depending on your mathiness). Also that's probably far more future proofed than a CS degree anyhow, and will get your feet in the door for degree requirements as well as open the door to lots of options that a CS degree wouldn't.

My experience is very similar but I will say that - as someone whose work is primarily in graphics and performance - that a lot of the math and theory has been really useful. The fawning over functional programming and formal proofs less so.

The biggest surprise when I got into the industry was how incredibly much necessary practical knowledge was not even hinted at in my education. Mainly related to actual tooling and processes required for large professional settings - not toy projects for five students doing something for a few weeks.

I take it you're not a big fan of functional programming ;)

I do like electrical engineering. I'm a huge Arduino-head, and am currently working on an embedded device for a client. The hardware design was relatively simple, but I have way more to learn in that area.

A degree is indeed more necessary in some disciplines/industries than others, and in some job markets rather than others. I'll say, sometimes what matters most is who you know, rather than what you know. Mentors and industry events are great for this. The right friends are two-thirds of the battle (and that alone is a reason some people attend expensive private universities).

And, of course, most tech companies will say that tech should be a meritocracy. Then they'll offer bonuses and incentives for anyone who can get a friend to fill an open role. Consider that.

Speaking as someone in the games industry, I disagree with your take on portfolios. For reference, when I graduated college back in 2015 I had a portfolio of games, a successful and reasonably popular game mod and a bunch of relevant classwork. None of that even mildly got my foot in the door at any gaming companies, big or small or otherwise. Also of note, many software companies force you to sign an assignment of inventions agreement or a declaration that says you will not work in anything remotely related to software in your free time, which heavily restricts your ability to add to your portfolio.

What did help me however, is that I got a job at a smaller company working on software and then leveraged that professional experience into a job in the industry. That initial job I got was because of my computer science degree.

The importance of a CS degree was the stuff I learned across the degree, not stuff that was necessarily directly CS-related. Physics and math classes for example I did horrifically in as well, but those concepts I picked up have been useful to have in my toolkit.

My experience was very different. But I did start in the games industry as a contractor working for abysmally poor pay. If you take a portfolio with actually decent programming skills, and flush self-worth down the drain along with labor protections, I think it’s very possible to get the foot in the door.

Unfortunately, the self-worth, poor compensation and no protections part is key in how a lot of people make it into games, and get their first games shipped. Beyond that, it’s easier.

I’m not saying this is a good or bad way to enter the industry, by the way. I have a strong opinion on it, but it’s outside the scope of what I wanted to share.

The thing is, as much as portfolio is important, experience is still more important

I'm a fellow game programmer from Sweden. My experience is a little different. I've worked in everything from indie to AAA and been part of recruitment on the AAA side.

In my own experience, it is true that a portfolio really helps you stand out. Recruiters often ask for your GitHub profile or blog.

However, I've found that recruiting really differs based on studio size. Indies tend to take what the can get, often forming a ragtag team of people with various levels of education and experience. AAA studios, on the other hand, are very discerning when it comes to programmers. They often won't give you a chance unless you either have solid experience or a university degree from a university they know is up to par. That's because there are so many talented programmers who really want to work in AAA

That is true but do they discern based on degrees?

I found that AAA studios will pick someone with game shipping experience and some good code examples on GitHub over someone with a university degree 9 times out of 10.

The degree does matter a bit more in AAA, especially R&D roles. These studios actually have some R&D to do. But for other roles and other company sizes… does it truly matter in Sweden? I mean, wouldn’t a decent portfolio (including just a list of titles they worked on) jump anyone to the front of the shortlist, ahead of degrees but weaker experience?

That’s been my experience.

Absolutely. But the kind of portfolio and experience that allows you to jump the queue is really hard to attain without first having been hired. So a degree really helps landing a good first job and getting that experience.

Keep in mind that in Sweden an education is not a financial burden. All universities are free and you get a state scholarship (plus very reasonable student loans if you wish).

From my experience when I lived in Europe, the following is important to get a job in IT:

- Degree, a general one is good, a specific one related to the job is better (especially in the German-speaking area, I don't know about the others)

- Experience, especially in well-known big companies

They used a trick there to reduce the leverage of employees in IT and created the myth of a "shortage of skilled workers" by repeatedly publishing this in various media, creating fake statistics and ghost job ads. A lot of foreigners jumped in and also the existing workforce, afraid of losing their jobs or not finding a new one, didn't bother to negotiate well anymore and are doing jobs for really bad money (e.g. 50k/year).

Now you add the "AI will replace you anyway" mantra, which initially increases this fear and the willingness of employees to work for low wages.

The effect is a workforce that is well educated and willing to work for food and shelter, no questions asked.

If you're trying to compete, a degree helps, but in the end you may be undercut by someone with the same degree (with better grades) but who takes less money because they don't know their worth.

My opinion: try to get out of Europe, run your own business or find a different career / business opportunity. These are bad times for CS employees in Europe.

They also said shortage of skilled workers in the US.

It's kind of upsetting because it's supposed to be the nature of free markets that demand increases price in order to better allocate labor resources, that means wages should be going up. So the message shouldn't be there's a shortage, the message should be that it's in high demand and that should be matched by increased starting salaries.

When anyone said "shortage of skilled workers" they meant "shortage of cheap satisfactory labor"/"software costs too much".

Shortage of workers is an excuse to bring in offshoring or short term visas / save money. I would prefer strategic longer term permanent immigration of quality candidates rather than moving the skills and knowledge overseas.

I'm not sure getting out of Europe would help that. Where would you suggest, maybe Canada, Australia, New Zealand but the situation will continue to be volatile I think. I don't think going to US is ideal at the current time for Europeans. Running a business is probably the best option if you can do something in demand. A different career is probably only realistic if you're very young as the only things I could suggest that would be a lot better (financially) might be by training as a professional Accountant, Lawyer or Doctor (and all of these might also be threatened by AI.

This is a UK perspective not Europe, but there are a lot of parallels (until recently) and I know Europe pretty well.

As soon as you've gotten your first job, degrees cease to matter for the most part until you start pursuing non-technical tracks IMO. There are some jobs that have bachelor requirements due to some weird contractual or government need though.

I don't know; there is the issue of when you try to find your next job that is not a straight continuation of your last. Without a CS degree if your first job is like a front-end ReactJS worker-bee then all you have told your potential next employer is that you can do what Figma's AI can do, just for more money. I agree that as you gain experience, the significance of the degree is lessened by the wait of your experience but if you took your same resume and deleted the education section, and never mentioned it in interviews, I think there would be some difference in outcomes.

The trick is you needed the degree to get that first job.

It's like saying the first floor isn't very important once you build the second floor

bingo

I'm not sure that anything I've done really counts as a "First Job". I've done an internship, and worked on several long term contracts, for which I can show results, but at the end of the day, it's unconventional to say the least.

At almost 45 i barely have 3 years of experience, because of mental health issues.

I failed to get back a degree for the same reason. Also in France, once you're above 25, you can't go back to university, you need to do classes for adults, which are lower quality and delivered by the labor department. Most of those classes are for people who never wrote code.

I tried to sign up some paperwork to get a degree equivalent but it's cumbersome and got refusals.

Needless to say, getting a job is impossible now. Most of the experience I have is because of the post COVID job market, but that's over now.

I say I am a developer without a job and people are surprised. I have excellent senior C++ test scores but without an engineering degrees, it's a no.

I might not be the best candidate, but there is no shortage of developers at all. They don't "hire anybody who can type code", that's just false.

Also ghost job ads, maybe?

Sounds like a difficult state to be in, perhaps you can consider one of the online programs offered by US universities like OMSCS by Georgia tech, or OMSC by UT austin, there are several others like that. They offer same curriculum as the in-house program but with online delivery and are flexible for working professionals

Is that actually true that you cannot to university after 25 in France? You could do Open University from the UK online; I think it is quite a credible program. It's open to almost anyone in the world as far as I know. If you are diligent, you can probably finish in 3 years even with a full-time job, but this depends on the person.

https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/computing-it/degrees

Well, I'm 41, and have about the same amount of experience, so you're not alone. In the USA, the main barrier for education is whether you can afford it, or don't mind being strapped with massive debt.

It's not a great time for us, but freelancing has been a lifesaver. Have you tried getting on a freelancing platform? It's probably easier to get work as a C++ developer than have to compete with the thousands of Wordpress devs.

I am in a position where I am a key decision maker in hiring for IT and also help in vetting resumes for other department/functions. In a nutshell:

Get that degree.

There are plenty of reasons (working in a team, demonstrated ability to organize, hit timelines, etc etc), but the single most important, IMHO, is that it will restrict your ability to grow in the company; HR have all sorts of talent and high potential mapping tables, and all the mid-top spots have degree/professional certification requirements. It would take a very special reason to get an exception, and what you've written wouldn't qualify.

I'll share my own story and try to answer your question in that context.

I was working as an underwriting assistant at an insurance company and became interested in landing a job as a software engineer. I took a Visual Basic class in high school and a Java class in college. I dropped out of a biology degree late during my second year of college. I managed to get a job at my company's IT helpdesk, supporting a specific application on a level 2 team.

I did a 6 month coding bootcamp for node/react, which I left feeling like I had a good baseline in coding ability. While working on the IT helpdesk, I built a webapp that allowed external insurance agents to submit tickets online by integrating with our ticket system API, but I still couldn't get an interview for a dev gig. I eventually asked an internal recruiter why I was never hearing back, and they stated that they were only interested in hiring straight from our college hire program. I was pretty crushed. Out of the blue, six months after coding bootcamp ended, a project manager whom I had known in the past asked me if I'd be interested in a SQL-heavy systems analyst job. I happily took that, and while on the job, I did some internal instructor-led Java training.

While I was an analyst, I was able to start taking on some small pieces of work on a Spring Java backend. I was able to get employed as an engineer on my team after working a little over a year as an analyst.

I am currently working on finishing up a dual Comp Sci and Math degree. This is to better my long term job safety and career prospects. I am going at a pace where my entire degree will be paid for by my company, without me fronting any money. Ultimately I was able to get employed as an engineer having done a coding bootcamp without a degree, but I think that was only possible because:

- I was well networked at my company and maintained relationships over years with prior colleagues

- I had substantial domain experience, in insurance, in my company's systems, its business processes, etc

- I developed a career path that spanned multiple steps to get to engineer, with each role building on the prior

I don't think I would have been able to get employed as an engineer outside my company without some in-between steps

Thank you for sharing.

I'm not confident that an online degree is the best way to improve your job prospects at the cost of $15k. The type of degree that would is likely a 4 year degree from any better-than-median school (obviously a top school would increase your chances tremendously).

In other words, the value of the degree, in tech, is largely the brand name of the school that issued the degree, and I wouldn't expect an online CS degree to open any doors that a bootcamp couldn't also open.

I way past the age where I'm going to graduate from MIT. I just want to be able to compete with the people with philosophy degrees, who made a portfolio using a template with a couple of CRUD apps on it.

At this point, my partner with a gender studies degree has a better chance of getting past the resume filters than I do.

I also don't have a CS degree and took the bootcamp route, but I have found very much that companies really do only care about what you know. It was difficult to get the first offer, but since then it's not been a problem at all. I have had multiple jobs and offers from startups to FAANG companies and the only reaction that I have ever gotten from telling people I did a bootcamp and switched careers in my early 30s was positive.

Having made this decision myself here is my direct experience over the last 6 months being an out of work tech worker like you, no degree at all, that also lives on the US West Coast.

Most places require a comp sci degree regardless of how good you are. It's rude to say that but I've found this to be true. I've also now realized that someone with a comp sci degree saying you don't need one, well they don't know what they're talking about. Being 6 months in to my degree program, also a boot camp grad but no degree, and in this US economy just having that I'm in school has made the difference. I added the degree to LinkedIn and my resume one month ago and I started getting interviews. Causation or correlation I don't know, I think a bit of both. I'm getting strong loops and it's come up now in every interview. Keep in mind that I have a very respectable DevOps background already, but I was getting anywhere. For Software Dev roles, I really think having the degree matters that much more and would reward you accordingly.

I assume we're talking about the school everyone asks about? A comp sci degree for 15k (so 18 months?) that's * ABET accredited * and * regionally accredited * which it is, checks all the necessary boxes, and would leave you open to get an in-person Comp Sci master's degree from Georgia Tech (I called) and probably from any good school on the US West Coast.

Before committing I asked 3 recruiters that I know, plus some hiring managers, and they all responded the same: "We'd interview you for a Software Developer role if you had a comp sci degree. We really don't care that it's from that school."

No to DeVry, ITT Tech, or City U, yes to the 'owl' one.

Do it.

In reading some of your responses to other posts I wanted to add that I'm answering the question realizing that you don't have a degree of any kind. Having a degree normalizes you to people with limited time or imagination - the upside is you spend far less time having to explain or prove your value. Getting a degree now is also a commitment to stop doing things the hard way. :-)

A degree in something is a minimum, a STEM degree is better, but since you're here now starting out, the direct route is one I really would recommend.

Edit: this question really fires me up and I've added to it a bit.

I probably should have been more clear in my original post that I don't have a degree. Sometimes I forget that "a degree in something" is really the bare minimum for anyone to take you seriously. I specified a CS degree because what else would I do?

My answers could have been clearer - I totally get your question and where you're starting from. A CS degree from WGU is worth the time and money and it will open the doors you want it, especially with your existing professional experience. Hopefully, that clarifies things.

I appreciate you clarifying. Thank you!

Degrees don’t matter in most cases. Distinguish yourself by doing the work and displaying it and talking about it.

Everybody is having a hard time finding a job. If you get a degree, you will do all that work and simply be competing with 100,000 other people who also have degrees and also want work.

I compete with them without institutional education. Although at my stage of career no one ever asks about my education.

Appreciate it! This is the path I'm working on right now.

Software developer for the last 7 years, started as a graphic designer, turned frontend, then backend engineer (was lucky to work in a product team where I was offered the opportunity to learn and switch careers). Last 4 years solely backend. No education, decided to pursue the cs degree anyways (no scared to lose this career) but instead to create new opportunities to grow and specialize. Having a cs degree opens up the opportunity for masters and other things I’m considering to pursue in the future to not stay a software developer forever. Besides that I am really learning a lot of stuff and it did make me a better developer. Following IU.org online degree, it’s quite modest but it is real and accredited, difficult too. Good luck!

Do it if you want to, and can afford it now without putting undue financial burden on yourself. But you have already said you've done the boot camp mill, maybe educating yourself isn't the path forward?

Keep in mind that there's not an insignificant amount of hiring managers like myself who don't care, and actively will toss your resume in the trash if the only thing on it is a CS degree. I generally have found CS degree holders to be poorer devs in general, less inventive, more interested in dogma than development.

For what it's worth I also have a network of excellent junior and mid-level engineers who haven't been able to land a gig in the tech world for years at this point, and are moving on to other things one way or another. Right now this is a very "you REALLY want to be here" market.

Perhaps it's not. I've got a much better resume than I did a year ago, and a year before that. I'm actively doing real work. I'm gradually checking the experience boxes as time goes on. Maybe that's my path.

I have absolutely zero interest in a CS degree, i never even really wanted a career in software at all, but i did an apprenticeship which placed me at a Fortune 500 and i rolled that into my current gig, so nearing 5 years of serious software engineering experience, but I'm still pretty well convinced i won't find another job without a degree (even though my company just interviewed 2 degree-less people for a role at the same level as mine, and my coworkers never even believe me when i say i didn't to to college lol).

If you have the motivation and the funds, i don't think it can hurt. As for me, I'll take solace in knowing i can scrape by on Upwork and my below average Chicago rent if i get fired lol. I may have the funds but i without question do not have the motivation.

I think they'll still continue to matter. Ofc if you're just trying to write some simple code you don't really need a degree, but I'd trust someone who understands the fundamentals of computing way more than someone who doesn't when it comes to working on complex optimization problems (like squeezing the last bit of efficiency from your CPUs). I know AI is getting really good at all this stuff, but I still think that there have to be people that understand this stuff deeply (even if they use AI to develop this deep understanding). It also shouldn't take 4 years for a CS degree now imo given that it is so much easier to grasp concepts with LLM assisted learning.

I doubt an online/evening CS degree will solve the issue you’re seeing. If it does, it will be the learning and knowledge, not the e-sheepskin.

I joined at a different time with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. My online resume originally had a spoiler tag expander to explain it, but other than an internship, I never worked a day of MechE in my life; all software and management.

I completely agree with the sibling posters that it doesn’t matter much (or at all) once you’ve got a little full-time software dev under your belt. I think most employers just want you to be able to create value for them. Other than consulting/body shop companies, your degree (the paper) doesn’t mean much.

I understand, but I don't have any degree. I think there is a big difference, especially when the job posting says "bachelor's degree required".

Is a degree necessary for applying to random job postings? Yes.

> lifestyle

Starting a family at one point may factor into this; you'll be happier having something stable thanks to the degree that helped place you.

You can always self-study off .edu syllabi, books, and all that. Not always at the most convenient times, but the knowledge is out there.

Make sure the degree is from a reputable school. It's possibly the most important money spent.

Online bachelor's for computer science, though. I don't know if online is best there. Experience will bolster that for sure. Just don't know how ruthless the automated filters are.

It's less risk to find out at $15k than $150k, at least.

Are any dev jobs really stable at this point though?

They're only as stable as the situation warrants. Everyone has their own reasons to stay or search.

If we add a layer of indirection, computer science is a training and mindset, a practice. This is a job that never goes; then employed or unemployed is just a curious financial state.

Strong yes. AI is the ultimate generalist, but it's not a specialist unless the operator is a specialist. It'll output the average of what it's trained on. It may know the new stuff, but unless someone programs it to return the new data, it'll return some old outdated stack.

You also have to know your terms to communicate properly with it. Like my favorite these days is asking it to decompose a conditional. You never needed this term when you were coding, but when AI writes the code, you'll say things like this all the time. I'm still quoting books from 1999 to vibe coders and vibe coding tools, the foundations matter.

Eventually the seniors will retire and they need to hire the juniors. Or someone hires Devin for a job and realizes Devin needs a buddy.

The other major trend nobody is talking about is that people are dropping out of college because they expect AI to take jobs. A friend teaches game dev and says about 1 in 7 are attending. For game dev. That's the most interesting lecture you can get into. How are the other fields faring? College is also being filled up with idiots who use ChatGPT and probably won't understand what they learned. There's going to be a huge gap in demand one day and demand will surge like it did in 2016.

If anything, it's a bad time for boot camps because AI can pass all the interviews easily.

Thank you.

Maybe not so much in a perfect world, but in reality it is often the case that some kind of filtering is needed. I work at a place that's fairly competitive to get into -- some positions get upwards of 20-30K applications for one position. Most of the engineering team spends enough time interviewing as is, so often it is, unfortunately, the case that stuff like your degree and what school you went to does materially (negatively) impact your chances. At some point, one must find a way to cut down these numbers. Cannot speak for the average case, though.

Youtuber PolyMatter has very recently made a video about exactly this topic: https://youtu.be/bThPluSzlDU

I'll have a look. Thank you!

I think getting a degree ensures your answers are similar to what your interviewer is trained on. Being untraditional in your education means you have to figure out how to package and sell your ideas. Getting a degree ensures its harder to reject you. Instead of finding an offer after 500 interviews, now you may have to do 400. For me, getting a master's degree was more useful than getting a bachelor's.

since you are in bay area, I can grab coffee if that'd be useful for you.

Is contributing to open source an option for you instead?

> Instead of finding an offer after 500 interviews, now you may have to do 400.

Holy cow, is that really how many interviews it takes to get hired these days?

It’s been about 10 years since I changed jobs, and then it took less than maybe 10 interviews.

> For me, getting a master's degree was more useful than getting a bachelor's.

I’m not sure this is the norm. I know very few people that I’ve worked with or have interviewed that have masters degrees. I’ve worked with + interviewed maybe close to 300 SWEs, and probably fewer than 5%, if that, have/had masters degrees.

> Holy cow, is that really how many interviews it takes to get hired these days?

I’m 50 and have been working as a software developer or closely adjacent for almost 30 years. I’ve never seen a job market like this.

Even back in 2000-2001 as a regular old enterprise dev with 3 years of experience, jobs were plentiful in Atlanta doing corporate dev. I got my third job late 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis relatively quickly and had two offers.

Fast forward to 2023. I was looking for regular old enterprise dev jobs where they wanted C# developers with AWS experience as a Plan B. I had 15+ years of C# experience, 7 leading projects and 6 years of AWS experience including 3.5 working at AWS (Professional Services).

I heard crickets sending out hundreds of resumes looking for remote opportunities. Every single opening had hundreds of applicants (LinkedIn shows you).

The same happened in 2024 when I was looking again.

I was able to get offers quickly both times for my “Plan A” jobs based on my network and in 2023, I found a couple of companies where the “nice to have” was implementing and modifying an open source “AWS Solution” for which I was a major contributor.

My “Plan A” was a full time job at a third party AWS consulting company where I would be leading cloud + app dev projects.

But, most people don’t have my share of “unfair advantages”.

I got an interview with the worst resume ever when covid hiring was ramping up. It ended up not working out. When the layoffs started shortly after, I submitted hundreds and got nothing.

I'd love an opportunity to contribute to open source. There have been some small contributions I've made to open source libraries that needed a fix, but nothing major. Come to think of it, I submitted a pull request to Tauri and should probably check if it's approved or not.

I'm always down for networking in person. I don't know how DMing works on here, but my Github username is the same as my handle on here.

As someone who has to make hiring decisions based on 100s of resumes, I look at degrees as allowing me to "fast forward" a step. If I'm looking for coding expertise, I can look for degrees where a university has effectively "checked the box" for me. It doesn't mean that someone without a degree is any less skilled. It just means that a third party is giving me more confidence in the skills I'm looking for.

As some other people have mentioned, one area it _could_ matter is if you are ever looking to work in another country and need to apply for a work visa.

Yes, it will help. There Will eventually be an employer that wants you to have a degree in cs to have a high-level CS job. At the same time, the world is full of intelligent, successful engineers who don't have a CS degree. And there's another separation between people with any kind of degree and people with some kind of degree doing programming.

I don't have "any kind of degree"

If you live in SF, you can get a cheap degree from a California community college. It will be 10-50 dollars per semester. You can even transfer the last year of the degree to a UC if you care for a name-brand school, but I don’t think that would be necessary with work experience.

A full on Bachelors at community college? interesting. I live right next door to SF in Oakland.

I have a CS and Business Management degree. What got me hired was my knowledge and experience, and I worked with coworkers without degrees. You have to prove that you can do the job.

Then again, I've seen $15/hr jobs that require a Master's in CS. That management is crazy.

I have a close relative who made more than that doing more or less entry level manual labor for the local city govt.

People make more than that babysitting or working at Chick-fil-a.

What was the role? What region was this in? Outside of a PhD student or something similar, I can't imagine this would be in the US, Canada, most of Europe.

USA programmer analyst for a law firm.

I hear you. Even with the degree, you have to know your stuff. I just feel like my resume always ends up at the bottom of the pile.

Try to find someone who can give you a warm intro. Don't reach out to HR first.

totally. I avoid HR types whenever possible.

They screen using AI, try putting the keywords they use for the job description in your resume in white text on a white background.

Yes, companies do value CS degrees. They are not obsolete. The era when jobs were handed out without proof of qualifications has passed. Nowadays, companies seek evidence that you are a valuable asset, and a respected Computer Science degree is often highly regarded.

>Several years ago, we were all told "You don't need a degree bro, degrees are obsolete bro, companies only care about what you know".

You were lied to then. It will definitely help you land a corporate job once you decide to stop freelancing.

I mean, we heard this from Google executives and Elon Musk. Seems like the corporations were the ones perpetuating the lies.

Look up degree hacking or get an online cs degree. I think it's worth it

I wouldn't recommend at this point in your career/life. Unless you are going to a tier 1 school you're just going to set your career back.

If I was you, then I'd keep hustling with upwork and whatever else you need to while building and launching something meaningful on your own in the space you want to work.

- slap a founder title up on your linkedin (set the start date to now)

- ship something not terrible

- continue iterating on it while becoming a better engineer, product manager, designer, etc all on your own

- learn to use AI coding tools really well

- clone and enhance the features of competitors

- talk about it a lot

- go to conferences for the business sector and for the tech stack

- network a ton

Then apply for a job if you still want to in 1-2 years. You'll have met a lot of people doing that and can hit them up or apply to competitors in the space using your startup as the perfect showcase.

When they ask why you are quitting just say you are super passionate about the space but couldn't raise money or going on a solo founder was terrible and you want to join a team.

And just don't apply for jobs at FANG ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ there are so many other companies out there that need people with the type of experience you'd have after 6 months to a year of the above. They are looking for folks with FANG background, tier 1 college/other pedigree, or specific experience building the same thing.

Thank you for your insight.

I will not be going to any prestigious school. It's not in the cards for me.

I actually do own a SaaS along with my business partner. I'm not the founder, but we bought the platform from the founders who were looking to bail. It's a logistics company that is used by mainly bike messengers. 20+ companies around the world use it.

I would say I've shipped a few non-terrible things so far. I built an application that runs on a POS kiosk that kids scan their little IDs on when they are tardy to class. It's in a few dozen schools in the LA area.

I do have a pretty interesting resume. It has caught the eyes of people, but it takes someone who had an unconventional history like myself to appreciate it.

I haven't submitted a job application in over a year. I just haven't seen the point of it given the market. I'm also not interested in FAANG at all. This would be more of a future proofing move.

Never stopped mattering in my opinion...

You can get a job in times of plenty without a BS CS degree. I have many times. But, getting a job at a highly sought after company is quite difficult.

In lean times, every job is difficult to land and the coveted are ~impossible. Even getting to a phone screen.

Going back, I’d get the full BS degree. Even though they were teaching Fortran at the time.

I'm not terribly interested in sought after companies, especially now that they are doing massive layoffs, and branding these people as "low performers".

I just have an irrational fear of being unemployable, which I feel like at the moment even though I have 2 long term clients that see me as un-replaceable (not exactly true, but I'm fine with it).

It's not merely that they are popular or "cool." They are typically the ones with the best pay, benefits, and workplace environment, that boost your resume in the future.

Others with lower pay, but good benefits like JPL won't even consider you without a science degree.

> Does it matter?

Yes.

> online CS degree.

No.

Most of the value of a degree is the connections you build and get opportunities through. You're not going to get much better at software development.

You'll learn some core CS/math concepts that can help later if you want to get into niche roles though. But that's not something most people benefit from, by definition of 'niche'.

I'm more concerned with my ability to get past the filters/hard requirements.

That's where a good network helps much more than a degree.

Get referred or better, knowing the hiring manager makes every filter a moot point.

Education can never hurt.

True => "I am the only one in the company that has a degree (MSc compsci). I know stuff the others never heard of." -- RamblingCTO

Learning on the job will teach you part of what others know, and none of the rest. Learning on your own will teach you what you're interested in and none of what you hate.

I'm no shining example. My whole life has been a series of mistakes, but I've been happily unemployed 20 years as of July 7, 2025, after I quit my last job (in state government) after deciding that I'd rather die than to keep working there. I'm good at saving money, so I'm OK, and living in Ecuador now, which is nice.

The advice for decades has been to get to know people, and find work through your connections. I'd say now, looking back, as a pathologically shy person, that that sort of social engineering is probably the key, along with being helpful on the job and always appearing happy and upbeat. People really like enthusiastic people who are always cheerful, and that would be good for you if you can pile it on top of expertise, especially if it's accompanied by credentials.

Education is something that no one can ever take away from you. It's a tool you can use any way you see fit. What sort of education and how much are for you to decide. Me, I spent 10 years struggling after high school before finally getting a B.A in English.

Three years later, after deciding that I wasn't going anywhere, I started over and ultimately got a B.S. in physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry, finishing that after 12 more years (with a big break in the middle to save up enough money to continue). And pretty much did shit work in state government for the rest of my working life.

If doing it over, I would be a LOT more aggressive and not hope that I'd get rewarded for doing good work. You have to go and grab what you need or fail boldly, I think. And you are the only one who cares how your life works out, despite what you might or might not hear from anyone else, let alone an employer.

A couple of interesting posts by David Heinemeier Hansson...

Why we won't hire a junior with five years of experience. (April 8, 2025) https://world.hey.com/dhh/why-we-won-t-hire-a-junior-with-fi...

We'll always need junior programmers. (April 24, 2025) https://world.hey.com/dhh/we-ll-always-need-junior-programme...

Thank you for sharing.

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