IMHO... It’s not an absolute of one being better than the other for all people or situations. A CS degree represents a more rigorous curriculum than most. It

IMHO... It’s not an absolute of one being better than the other for all people or situations. A CS degree represents a more rigorous curriculum than most. It also used to signal an interest in the field. (Nowadays it’s getting more like Econ or Finance - a path to money) If I am hiring an engineer, and I have to sort through which 10 candidates out of 200 resumes to interview, the CS degree is one heuristic of many to make the list manageable. If a colleague I respect hands me a resume and says “This is one of the best people I’ve ever worked with” I won’t even look at the degree or anything else on the resume. Several of the absolute best engineers I’ve met are self taught without the CS degree. That isn’t incompatible with saying the median engineer with a CS degree is stronger than the median without. (And many with the CS degree are self taught too)