When I hired people at a former company, I secretly thought of job candidates like you as undervalued stocks. Just being honest, don't mean any disrespect — I m

When I hired people at a former company, I secretly thought of job candidates like you as undervalued stocks. Just being honest, don't mean any disrespect — I mean undervalued in the sense of not being appreciated by other companies, not in how much we paid people. I myself have degrees, but not in anything like software development, and I think engineers who don't have degrees but do exhibit all the other characteristics are just as talented, often more driven, practical, and reliable. Self-motivated, rather than something they fell into. Thinking of the five best engineers I've worked with, two of them didn't go to school at all, and two had degrees in things like music or political science. I've had poor experiences with people whose main qualification is an engineering diploma from a name brand school. Of course there's a middle band in there where it gets more complicated, but generally I think smart, scrappy companies are eager to hire people like yourself, and I like working for that kind of company, personally.