I too have found problem solving to be the most important skill - understanding the problem so you can craft the proper fix or implementation is vital to saving

I too have found problem solving to be the most important skill - understanding the problem so you can craft the proper fix or implementation is vital to saving time. Of the best developers I've worked with/know, only 1 has a CS degree. One has a liberal arts degree IIRC (works at Netflix), another is a college dropout (works at Google)...and the one with a CS degree has a tendency to overengineer systems with great flaws that the others I know wouldn't do (tries to be too clever). Myself, I have a MS in math from a top 15 program (PhD dropout).