You seem to equate their requiring a degree with a person being able to perform the task. Just because they require a degree as a filter it does not mean that i

You seem to equate their requiring a degree with a person being able to perform the task. Just because they require a degree as a filter it does not mean that it is a constant that a person must hold degree X to perform task Y. This is not the case, what is the case is that Google requires a degree as a filter, nothing more nothing less. There are many people lacking degrees or degrees in that specialty that can competently perform the task. For example I can hack a Bosch Common Rail onto an older diesel engine and build a custom ECU for it. I have no formal experience in EE or Mechanical Engineering but I am confident that I could work on the self driving cars at Google. Would they hire me, no because I don't have a degree in that field, does that mean that I cannot do it, no. I am confident that I could get a job tomorrow with a performance diesel product vendor, that is doing just as complicated development in their niche, should I chose to. Some companies, specifically smaller companies have the time to deeply investigate the candidates, larger companies on the other hand many times have to rely on filters. But don't mistake those filters as an indication of quality or superiority, they are rather administrative processes, nothing more nothing less.