Yep, I developed a love for coding when I'd already squandered my attempt at tertiary education, and had a young son and wife who'd developed a belief that wome

Yep, I developed a love for coding when I'd already squandered my attempt at tertiary education, and had a young son and wife who'd developed a belief that women shouldn't work, to support. So I wasn't able to go back to university, so I'm self-taught, although I sat (and passed) a few first year papers via correspondence. Later on I took second year papers part-time to cover gaps I'd identified in my knowledge of computer science. But it was very hard to get an interview with no degree. I had a portfolio of code I'd written for people freelance, but even getting people to look at it was near impossible. I was rejected several times with reasons along the lines of "self-taught devs write unstructured/bad/spaghetti code", which annoyed me when they wouldn't look at my portfolio. In the end, I got an interview via a friend of a colleague who was a stealth developer in the call centre I worked in. He was desperate to learn JS, so I taught him, and consequently he recommended me to his friend. Who, luckily for me, worked for a company founded by a developer who was also self-taught and sans degree, so he gave me a chance to prove myself. 13 years later, my lack of degree doesn't concern anyon But, 5 years to get an interview, and in the first 5 years, I was really worried what would happen if the company downsized and I had to find another job. Not to mention the imposter syndrome feeling.