I'm self-taught and have been at it for about 15 years. I write this being conscious of the possibility that 15 years ago this may have been easier than now. Re

I'm self-taught and have been at it for about 15 years. I write this being conscious of the possibility that 15 years ago this may have been easier than now. Regardless, I went the "sideways" route back then. Started in QA and moved into more and more programming heavy roles as I went. Took a few hops: QA -> [stint in freelance web dev] -> Build engineer (a lot of scripting, but I tailored the role to include more heavy programming and tools work) -> Tools engineer. From there the doors were pretty open. I worked across core tech, engine, backend, frontend, etc. I think it's been long enough, with enough experience, that the lack of degree isn't really a factor. Once recruiters see you have a decade of shipping code, a degree isn't really at the forefront of the mind. But that initial step took some sideways maneuvering.