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Comment by aashaykumar92 | Hacker News Reader

I am not saying that a degree is not important! I'm just saying that just being a CS major does not make one a great programmer and likewise, a great programmer need not be a CS major. I believe a history major can become a great programmer...as said in the video, learning how to program just takes determination.

I was an econ major and learned html/css in a few short weeks pretty darn well. At least enough to land me a web developer position with a rising startup. I have decided to change my major to a more technical one purely because I enjoy learning both HOW to program and what I can do with it--which I'm learning is just about anything :)

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> I'm just saying that just being a CS major does not make one a great programmer and likewise, a great programmer need not be a CS major.

I'm emphatically not saying this, I'm saying that a degree is good for employment. Many places will outright refuse to hire people without at least a BA in computer science (or computer engineering, I guess? I am not aware of the related fields).

Thankfully, investors care more about the end code than degrees.

Your first statement was that you need a degree to get a job. Having a degree gives you access to more jobs, but you can get a job just fine without a degree.

> but you can get a job just fine without a degree.

I have a few relatives who are well versed in computers but cannot find employment. I'm sure they would be reassured by your comment.

Being "well-versed in computers" is not the same thing as being a valuable programmer. If you are a valuable programmer and you still can't find a job without a degree, you're doing something wrong (what you're doing wrong varies individually, of course).

I have no degree, and have never gone more than a month without a job offer while actively looking for a position. One time it took two months to find a position with acceptable compensation, but I'd received a low-ball offer in the first month.

What exactly is a "valuable programmer"? It's about as vague a notion as being "well versed in computers".

Edit : essentially, you just re-defined bar without providing any real context.

Taken a step further (and perhaps in a different job market), someone might say "oh, well being a valuable programmer isn't the same as being a Rockstar programmer..."

The key lies in the word "valuable", which is completely situational and vague, whereas "programmer" is not.

A valuable programmer, in this context, is someone who seeks to get paid by a company to write code and would have a significant (as far as individual employees go) net-positive influence on that company's financials.

So returning to the statement "...you can get a job just fine without a degree..." comes with an important caveat.

Namely, that you can get a job "just fine" if you're a programmer of sufficient talent and knowledge to be able to be a net-positive influence on a company's financials.

YMMW, but that's a relatively high bar. Higher, at least, than the ease that "just fine" (IMHO) implies.

It's certainly possible, but non-trivial.

I'm pretty sure the concept of employment in general is that any employee is going to supply ample net financial upside to the employer. If you have the skills to be employable as a programmer, you should not need a college degree to find work.

I don't know exactly what a valuable programmer is, but I'll give you numbers regarding my situation, so that we talk about concrete things.

I do Python/Django work and I have 3 years of experience. I have a GitHub profile which I show when applying for jobs and my profile shows that I've made 359 contributions in the last year. I have a LinkedIn profile through which details the technologies I use and the experience I have.

Since the start of the year, I think I've been contacted by 10 recruiters with job proposals. I chose to work remotely though, with clients outside of my country.

This is changing though. Even in just the last decade, people's attitudes towards the job/degree relationship has changed dramatically. If the trend continues, I expect in another decade or two more it probably won't even be a consideration, except perhaps where the law still requires.

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