I am mechanical engineer without any formal SW training. I see lots of people from different fields who are programming BUT they all have a degree in some fiel

I am mechanical engineer without any formal SW training. I see lots of people from different fields who are programming BUT they all have a degree in some field no matter how unrelated. From what I have seen a lot of companies will filter you out automatically if you don't have a college degree. This gets better with seniority but in my view it's something to consider.