> coding for 8 years professionally? or as a hobby. big difference in experience and big difference in employment prospects. i believe you mean, on your own ti

> coding for 8 years professionally? or as a hobby. big difference in experience and big difference in employment prospects. i believe you mean, on your own time. once you have 3-4 years professionally, a degree (from other than a tier 1 college) is not useful. so once you land your first job, and if you can stick it out at least say 2 years, the degree won't matter. so my advice: actually try to get a job. have you done that or are you asking before even seeing if you can get interviews? i would outright lie on the job history and put 3 years of freelancing experience. use the github work as the bullet points of what you did. do not list the actual github on your resume. there are of course other ways to go about it, and some will find lying on the resume to be unacceptable. but if you stick to projects you actually did, i don't personally have much of a problem with it.