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I am working at one now (kind of, since MSFT doesn't really make it into the abbreviation), and one of the brightest senior engineers on my team had no degree w

I am working at one now (kind of, since MSFT doesn't really make it into the abbreviation), and one of the brightest senior engineers on my team had no degree whatsoever, just a high-school diploma (using past tense, because he left for another company a couple of years ago). I also have a bunch of friends who currently work Google (some from college, some former colleagues) and a few at FB, and all of them know at least one coworker without a college degree. And when our team was recruiting experienced candidates (5-10 years or more), at no point we ever cared about their degree or lack thereof (aside from some specialized research positions that typically require graduate degrees). For entry level though, yeah, if you are in your early 20s without much industry experience, it is gonna be much tougher to get hired without a degree.

lazyasciiart 5y ago
It's getting harder. I have a friend who worked at MSFT out of high school >10 years ago, and was told several years in that he could never be promoted beyond his current level without a degree. Decided to take a couple years off to get a degree in something random (theology) and when he applied for his old job, now +BA, was told he needed a CS degree to be qualified for it.
- filoleg 5y ago
  Was your friend in engineering? And what kind of level was your friend shooting for? Because yeah, if you are shooting for a director or a partner level position, you better have a degree. But for a regular senior engineer position? Not at all. Also, i don't know when your friend tried to get re-hired and at which level. The whole "we don't care as much about degrees anymore" is a fairly recent thing, I would say 5 or so years. And of course, if your friend only worked at MSFT for a few years, then left to do school, and then tried to come back, they would be probably still shooting for a close-to-entry level position, not a senior. And entry-level without a degree or something else to compensate for it is going to be really tough. Normally it is compensated by either years of experience or something else (side projects, major open-source contribs, etc.), hence why I never saw someone without a degree at entry-level, but plenty who are senior engineers.

lazyasciiart 5y ago

It's getting harder. I have a friend who worked at MSFT out of high school >10 years ago, and was told several years in that he could never be promoted beyond his current level without a degree. Decided to take a couple years off to get a degree in something random (theology) and when he applied for his old job, now +BA, was told he needed a CS degree to be qualified for it.

filoleg 5y ago
Was your friend in engineering? And what kind of level was your friend shooting for? Because yeah, if you are shooting for a director or a partner level position, you better have a degree. But for a regular senior engineer position? Not at all. Also, i don't know when your friend tried to get re-hired and at which level. The whole "we don't care as much about degrees anymore" is a fairly recent thing, I would say 5 or so years. And of course, if your friend only worked at MSFT for a few years, then left to do school, and then tried to come back, they would be probably still shooting for a close-to-entry level position, not a senior. And entry-level without a degree or something else to compensate for it is going to be really tough. Normally it is compensated by either years of experience or something else (side projects, major open-source contribs, etc.), hence why I never saw someone without a degree at entry-level, but plenty who are senior engineers.