I think the issue here is not whether a CS degree is important, but whether the people doing the hiring consider having a degree relevant. In many accounting r

I think the issue here is not whether a CS degree is important, but whether the people doing the hiring consider having a degree relevant. In many accounting related areas, having a degree is not important. The accountants, finance and management related executives who need the programmers didn't need CS degrees to create their Excel spreadsheets and macro, so why should they think a CS degree is important? Try getting a programming job in an engineering domain without a CS degree. They would rather have a physics or maths major and teach them programming rather than a person with programming experience without a degree in that field. It all depends on that programming tasks are required. You certainly don't need a degree to code for AWS or Kubernetes, but you will need it in hard STEM areas.