I’ve worked with all sorts. I can’t say what degree the best had. I think the no degree at all being able to excel is a holdover of the 90s

17y-olds read such sh*t and think they will become carrerists without ever studying. But then reality knocks the door, and they end up sweeping mcDonalds. A good software engineer (repeat: software *engineer* -not script coder) knows a lot about hardware, operating systems, networks, etc, and you can't really learn all this at your spare time. It is like saying that someone will teach themselves mathematics. Well, theoretically, you can (I did it too), but universities exist for a reason.

Some of the best i've worked with were trained as classical musicians.

Your anecdotes are valuable. No, really.

Agreed, but there’s a not-insignificant survivorship bias here: these are the ones who made it, and they had to learn it all on their own, so it should not be surprising they outperform others. The ones that tried without a degree in CS and didn’t make it aren’t in your sample set.

Interesting point. However, I can’t say I’ve encountered engineers in other (non-software) engineering fields without at least a 4-year BS from an accredited university. It’s essentially the minimum barrier to entry. While 2-year associate degrees were once common for drafters, even those roles increasingly require 4-year degrees these days.

I’m sorry bro, I’ll do my best next time

So you walked around asking everyone if they had a degree. Bruh, stop lying. 🤦‍♂️

I have been programming computers since 1965-66. Some of the best coders I have known in my career had no college degree, and some have had master's degrees. The best ENGINEERS (as opposed to coders) that I have known have had degrees -- but not all of them had computer science or math degrees.

The term "engineer" is overused in our field. I consider myself a "developer" and I've had roles with "engineer" titles and have applied for many such roles.