While you can get a job (and a good job at that) without a CS degree it is my opinion that you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage by not having

While you can get a job (and a good job at that) without a CS degree it is my opinion that you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage by not having one. One aspect is the theoretical foundation. You can of course get this by just reading yourself and a transcript doesn't actually prove you know anything but without a CS foundation, the onus is now on you know to prove somehow you're simply a "monkey see, monkey do" cut-and-paste coder. The other important part is practical. Companies get a lot of CVs. For programming jobs, the most common filter is "has a degree". If you have one, you go in one pile, if you don't, you go in the other (which is often filed in the big circular filing cabinet). What's more, hiring managers may have their hands tied on this one: it could be HR policy or the hiring manager may not even see your CV because HR has already filtered it out (this happens a lot). After I started working I went back and studied part time to get a degree. I'm glad I did, even if it's major use is to have one less barrier to being hired.