I have a CS degree, which I completed with a significant percentage of graduate-level classes where among other things I wrote a compiler, a raytracer, and a ne

I have a CS degree, which I completed with a significant percentage of graduate-level classes where among other things I wrote a compiler, a raytracer, and a network stack. I agree that the breadth of knowledge from a proper CS program gives you the lay of the land in a way that a self-taught individual won't have. But I certainly would never hold it against someone not having a CS degree, even in specialized fields. Frankly, you can learn more in a couple months on the job at places doing real cutting edge work than you would through an entire CS undergrad program, at least for the purposes of shipping software of value. The bottom line is if you have what it takes to be a competent software developer, anything you would learn in a CS degree is easily accessible just by learning the right things to google for. There are certainly disciplines that require more specialized knowledge and have a much higher bar than your typical CRUD app, but even there I don't feel like school is any kind of important factor in determining whether one can achieve competence. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I think there is a baseline ability to grok software which can be unlocked in an individual through sufficient practice, but not by education, and this is the primary factor to one's productivity in all programmer jobs.