I'm a Mechanical Engineer that has a degree so I am not sure if this applies to you and my findings are anecdotal. I work(ed) with a lot of people that did not

I'm a Mechanical Engineer that has a degree so I am not sure if this applies to you and my findings are anecdotal. I work(ed) with a lot of people that did not have degree and moved from the production to design engineer. However, it took a lot of time for them to get there. Also, I find that people with higher degrees tend to get promoted to higher positions. Another big drawback of not having a degree is that it's harder to move to the same position in a different company. I know many coworkers who started at a lower engineering position (and lower pay) because of the lack of degree. They'll eventually get promoted to their previous level because of their expertise but this usually takes a couple years.