are you talking about competing on the job market or in YC application? If the former, you'll need to show a bunch of examples of your work. So do a lot of pro

are you talking about competing on the job market or in YC application? If the former, you'll need to show a bunch of examples of your work. So do a lot of projects that you can show(+the source code). If you are talking about YC...once again skill beats paper. I know Octopart both founders were physicists...which learned to code on their own