In short, you have no degree and no software engineering experience, so getting hired for a junior dev role with super low pay should be the realistic next step

In short, you have no degree and no software engineering experience, so getting hired for a junior dev role with super low pay should be the realistic next step. I have no degree, but I started my career with a lot of open source projects on Github. If you work hard enough there, and you actually market your projects and your own brand, you will have a chance at getting hired. I was offered my first job at a very, very low salary and I took it. After a year, they realized I was worth my salt and they wanted to keep me, so I got a hefty raise. If you want into this industry, I recommend you do the same. Make some open source projects which are useful and market them. Make them look good, visually, and do the same with your own website. Meanwhile, apply places and talk to recruiters. If you get an offer and it's a low salary, you should probably take it. The only reason you shouldn't would be if your personal expenses require a higher salary (i.e. you have a kid); you may need to lower your class of living, if you're single and used to making a lot more. However, once you get that first job, do everything you can. Learn everything you can. A couple years in, people won't know you don't have a degree; you'll just be another dev. There's one key thing about practice that I'll mention here, though: stick with one thing, at the start. You need to make up for your lack of credentials and experience, so it would be good if you're very comfortable with something. For me, it was C++ and game engines. With that said, the lack of degree still bites when it comes to job changes. Even later in my career, I've had teams give me the "okay" and even welcome me to the company before someone higher up sees I don't have a degree and calls the whole thing off. That primarily happens with larger companies, though, so you're better off sticking with smaller companies until you have enough work experience to make people no longer care where/when you went to school. Lastly, I mentioned this above, but it's the most useful point here and it's worth saying multiple times: market your fucking brand. Firstly, if I spent a weekend making a FOSS project, I'd spend the next week adding documentation, CI, code coverage tests, and everything else which people expect from a Github project these days. Why? Because it looks better and it makes you look better. Secondly, if I make a ray tracer or game engine, I'm not going to show it rendering some spheres; instead, take the time to parse some file formats to show a whole scene. This is because people make up their mind about something they see in the split second when they first see it. It doesn't matter how slick your code is; make it look good to recruiters, team managers, and passers by. Thirdly and finally, know your audience when you're making things look good. When you build your website, build it not for super technical people, but for the most average mouse clicker you can imagine. That's who you need to impress in order to get your résumé in front of a dev.