10 ms·

Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

• orionblastar 2y ago
  I have a CS and Business Management degree. What got me hired was my knowledge and experience, and I worked with coworkers without degrees. You have to prove that you can do the job. Then again, I've seen $15/hr jobs that require a Master's in CS. That management is crazy.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I hear you. Even with the degree, you have to know your stuff. I just feel like my resume always ends up at the bottom of the pile.
    • airstrike 2y ago
      Try to find someone who can give you a warm intro. Don't reach out to HR first.
      • platevoltage 2y ago
        totally. I avoid HR types whenever possible.
    • orionblastar 2y ago
      They screen using AI, try putting the keywords they use for the job description in your resume in white text on a white background.
  • willismichael 2y ago
    I have a close relative who made more than that doing more or less entry level manual labor for the local city govt.
    • dinkumthinkum 2y ago
      People make more than that babysitting or working at Chick-fil-a.
  • fakeBeerDrinker 2y ago
    What was the role? What region was this in? Outside of a PhD student or something similar, I can't imagine this would be in the US, Canada, most of Europe.
    • orionblastar 2y ago
      USA programmer analyst for a law firm.
• candiddevmike 2y ago
  As soon as you've gotten your first job, degrees cease to matter for the most part until you start pursuing non-technical tracks IMO. There are some jobs that have bachelor requirements due to some weird contractual or government need though.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I'm not sure that anything I've done really counts as a "First Job". I've done an internship, and worked on several long term contracts, for which I can show results, but at the end of the day, it's unconventional to say the least.
  • TZubiri 2y ago
    The trick is you needed the degree to get that first job. It's like saying the first floor isn't very important once you build the second floor
    • platevoltage 2y ago
      bingo
  • dinkumthinkum 2y ago
    I don't know; there is the issue of when you try to find your next job that is not a straight continuation of your last. Without a CS degree if your first job is like a front-end ReactJS worker-bee then all you have told your potential next employer is that you can do what Figma's AI can do, just for more money. I agree that as you gain experience, the significance of the degree is lessened by the wait of your experience but if you took your same resume and deleted the education section, and never mentioned it in interviews, I think there would be some difference in outcomes.
• zdragnar 2y ago
  I can't speak to whether an online degree is worthwhile. What I can say is that the more you fill out your resume with work experience, the less the degree will matter to non-FANG employers. I suppose it depends on the kind of programming that you do, but not having a CS degree hasn't held me back at all. By this point I've got over 16 years of experience I think, and I don't even bother listing much about my education other than having a BA and the university I got it from. If you're thinking about doing something else to have some variety on the resume, authoring and maintaining an open source library, or becoming a contributor or maintainer of one is always a nice addition to the resume. Unlike getting a degree, it's free to do (time aside) and can show a different kind of experience than you might be getting now through freelancing.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I guess I should have been more clear in my post. I don't have any degree.
    • zdragnar 2y ago
      Pretty sure leaving the education off of your resume entirely is fine. Don't lie if they ask, but as others have said, once you get experience under your belt, most employers tend to stop caring about it altogether. Even if it is listed as a requirement on the job posting, hiring managers care way more about competence than they do a fancy piece of paper.
      • platevoltage 2y ago
        Yeah. This is what I've been told. The issue is that getting your resume into the hands of a hiring manager feels increasingly difficult.
        • zdragnar 2y ago
          The past year or so has probably been the worst market for developers since 2008. It's been picking up again, or at least it was for a bit. If you haven't yet, one thing that would be worth doing is working with a recruiter. There's plenty of bad ones out there, of course, but a good one will have direct access to the people hiring. If you're willing to work on-site, even better, as that will significantly reduce the number of people you're competing against for attention. I hope you find some of this useful, and either way, I wish you luck!
• readthenotes1 2y ago
  I'm pessimistic about the future of software development careers in the US. Not only are you competing with lower cost people from around the world, you will increasingly begin competing versus vibe coding (at the entry level) and the never-sick-but often-wrong AI (replacing the entry and lower mid-level). There's also, apparently, a glut in the market from all the people stockpiled during Covid and subsequently made redundant. -- In the flip side, if you have a really strong network of people wanting to hire you if not for the B.S. checkmark, it'll probably be a good move
• dhqgekt 2y ago
  Youtuber PolyMatter has very recently made a video about exactly this topic: https://youtu.be/bThPluSzlDU https://youtu.be/bThPluSzlDU
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I'll have a look. Thank you!
• nemothekid 2y ago
  I'm not confident that an online degree is the best way to improve your job prospects at the cost of $15k. The type of degree that would is likely a 4 year degree from any better-than-median school (obviously a top school would increase your chances tremendously). In other words, the value of the degree, in tech, is largely the brand name of the school that issued the degree, and I wouldn't expect an online CS degree to open any doors that a bootcamp couldn't also open.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I way past the age where I'm going to graduate from MIT. I just want to be able to compete with the people with philosophy degrees, who made a portfolio using a template with a couple of CRUD apps on it. At this point, my partner with a gender studies degree has a better chance of getting past the resume filters than I do.
• sokoloff 2y ago
  I doubt an online/evening CS degree will solve the issue you’re seeing. If it does, it will be the learning and knowledge, not the e-sheepskin. I joined at a different time with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. My online resume originally had a spoiler tag expander to explain it, but other than an internship, I never worked a day of MechE in my life; all software and management. I completely agree with the sibling posters that it doesn’t matter much (or at all) once you’ve got a little full-time software dev under your belt. I think most employers just want you to be able to create value for them. Other than consulting/body shop companies, your degree (the paper) doesn’t mean much.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I understand, but I don't have any degree. I think there is a big difference, especially when the job posting says "bachelor's degree required".
• WorkerBee28474 2y ago
  There's a story that goes: A man was tasked with hiring an employee. He got hundreds of resumes. His friend looks at the stack and asks him "how are you going to decide among all those?" The man grabs half the stack, throws it in the garbage and says "Simple, I don't hire unlucky people". Degrees matter when employers don't have the time and/or ability to make a reasonable decision for every candidate. They need ways to eliminate chunks of the applications. Illogical ways of eliminating candidates are acceptable because they are better than having no way. One method that's not completely illogical is to only look at candidates who have degrees. You can get degrees for <15K. For a BSCS you can do WGU for 5/10K. For a MSCS you can do GaTech OMSCS for 7K. Those numbers are small enough that they're almost definitely worth it. But those also cost time, which you will have to decide for yourself if you want to spend.
  • dcreater 2y ago
    Yes in this world of AI in everything, hiring tooling that is dog shit is the reason someone should go to college? I'm not commentating in where you're right or wrong, just want to point out what an utterly horrid reality.
    • platevoltage 2y ago
      I mean, we live in a day and age where an entry level administrative job requires a degree. Gotta make sure to keep us trashy blue collar guys in our place.
      • osigurdson 2y ago
        Except that trades probably make more money.
        • platevoltage 2y ago
          I was an autobody technician, and later. diesel mechanic. I make more now averaging 20 hours a week on Upwork. Unless you are a business owner or a union member, you're probably not doing particularly well.
• wai1234 2y ago
  I think you should ask yourself two related but separate questions: 1. Will the CS degree increase your knowledge and problem-solving ability faster than you could without it? 2. Will the credential add substantially to your credibility for hiring managers? The answer to 1 is mostly about your level of self-discipline and ability to learn independently. If you need the stimulus of a structured environment and a peer group to learn at your best, then any accredited program will be helpful, and your ability to pass coding interviews will increase (with a lot of hard work beyond the curriculum). The answer to 2 is pretty straightforward: unless your degree is from a tier 2+ school, the raw credential is of little value, and even tier 2 is not certain. To count, an online degree must be presented by the school as competitive with an on-site degree. Georgia Tech offers such a degree program as a tier 1 school, for example. An unaccredited program is of no value whatsoever in answer to 1 or 2. So, avoid them at any price. You are looking at a 3-5 year project, no matter what, and this is probably a good time to do that. The market will take that long to sort itself out and to realize that vibe coding is NOT the miracle it seems.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    1. no. My CS fundamentals could always use work, but I know enough to know how to improve them on my own if and when I need to. 2. yes. this could just be my cynicism talking though. I'm not looking at any unaccredited program. I already have one of those under my belt.
    • 3np 2y ago
      I think you may be undervaluing effort and payoff of CS fundamentals, as well as overestimating payoff of the paper from an online degree. (Caveat: If you'll be emigrating in the future a degree can make a difference for visas if recognized ) If you do it and actually apply yourself (as opposed to optimizing for points/effort) I guess you'll be on the up regardless of which (:
      • platevoltage 2y ago
        I wasn't undervaluing it. I was just answering the question. I've spent a lot of time on CS fundamentals. I can't say I've used a binary search tree in my every day work. If I anticipate this type of question in an interview, I'll need to go back and review. Thats all I meant.
• YZF 2y ago
  I started my professional career without a degree a long time ago. I did a few years of Comp.Sci. (and math) but didn't finish. I then finally got the extra credits to finish years later so I'm a proud bachelors of compute science (it did feel good the decades ago when I completed it). Once I had real experience getting a job was not a problem. That said, getting some specific job at a specific company might be hindered by not having a degree (or even not having a CS degree). I would say: - A degree in Comp.Sci. is useful for what you learn not just for the paper. - Sometimes the paper matters. Some companies will only hire people with a degree. Others you'd need to be a superstar to work around that requirement. - Sometimes the degree can impact your pay. E.g. if you work for the government or a university. - A degree can impact things like immigration. E.g. it's much easier for me as a Canadian to work in the US because my degree means I can get a TN. Some countries will give preference to immigrants with degress. - You can meet interesting people and make connections during your studies.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Thank you for your response. I'm not really interested in specific companies. I'm really NOT interested in FAANG type companies. I have however seen many listings where I was like "this fits my knowledge and interests perfectly other than the degree requirement" - While I'm interested in the paper, I absolutely love learning everything I can about computers. I'm super neurodivergent, and have trouble learning things I'm not interested in. Gen Ed is why college didn't work out for me 20 years ago. - There's always going to be jobs that require specialized degrees. I understand that. I just don't want to have my resume thrown in the trash when I apply for an entry level front end web dev job. - Totally, I'm not terribly interested in university jobs, and this seems like the worst time ever to work for the government - Doesn't apply to me, but I appreciate you sharing your experience. - Thats true, but I'm in no place to actually go sit in a classroom right now.
    • YZF 2y ago
      I don't regret getting a degree fwiw. My degree was 100% focused on math and comp.sci. (not in North America where they force you to take other subjects). If you have 20 years of experience I wonder if there are options for you to have that recognized towards a degree or even to get accepted into a Masters program (where presumably you'd have to make up some required courses but still).
• hayst4ck 2y ago
  As someone who has interviewed candidates for a FANG company in the distant past I can't say that degrees matter, but I can say that people I interviewed with degrees generally did better. There's a hidden bias in that this is only people who got through recruiters and recruiters are their own filter. Strong referrals usually guaranteed a phone screens. I think previous experience at a major competitor in the same tier or a degree from a top CS school were also meaningful, but I don't know how else they filtered. There is a non trivial relationship between colleges and businesses, so you are likely to do many problems in college that are not terribly different from the interview questions. Additionally all of your peers have been interviewed/do interviews/do referrals and that does matter. College students generally did not do incredibly well on practical problems, so I would expect a non college candidate to do really well on them. Many of the best co-workers that I remember had physics degrees. In fact, it was so pronounced I personally consider a physics degree to be a top tier signal of programming ability, but that's my own personal prejudice. If your degree isn't from a top 10-20 CS school it's probably not worth it if you have experience. If you can't make friends while doing the courses, then I don't think it's worth it. Going to a good college is much much much much more than a few lectures, some book reading, and some assignments. It is face to face time with world class experts, it's a culture, it's social, it's exploratory. You can potentially work on bleeding edge research or be introduced to things you never knew existed. It sounds like your idea of what college is, is that it's a technical education rather than a liberal education. If that's true I think your perception of college is wrong. There are some situations where a college degree really matters. If you want to apply for a work visa in a foreign country, a degree from a good college can potentially get your application a rubber stamp or lack of one could completely restrict you from it.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I understand the concept of "liberal education". Perhaps if I lived in a country that values having an educated populous, I would go that route. The truth of the matter is that I am a 41 year old adult in the USA. It's not in the cards for me.
  • murderfs 2y ago
    > Many of the best co-workers that I remember had physics degrees. In fact, it was so pronounced I personally consider a physics degree to be a top tier signal of programming ability, but that's my own personal prejudice. You're basically just using it as a proxy for general intelligence, the _average_ physics major's IQ is around 130.
• jokoon 2y ago
  At almost 45 i barely have 3 years of experience, because of mental health issues. I failed to get back a degree for the same reason. Also in France, once you're above 25, you can't go back to university, you need to do classes for adults, which are lower quality and delivered by the labor department. Most of those classes are for people who never wrote code. I tried to sign up some paperwork to get a degree equivalent but it's cumbersome and got refusals. Needless to say, getting a job is impossible now. Most of the experience I have is because of the post COVID job market, but that's over now. I say I am a developer without a job and people are surprised. I have excellent senior C++ test scores but without an engineering degrees, it's a no. I might not be the best candidate, but there is no shortage of developers at all. They don't "hire anybody who can type code", that's just false. Also ghost job ads, maybe?
  • dinkumthinkum 2y ago
    Is that actually true that you cannot to university after 25 in France? You could do Open University from the UK online; I think it is quite a credible program. It's open to almost anyone in the world as far as I know. If you are diligent, you can probably finish in 3 years even with a full-time job, but this depends on the person. https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/computing-it/degrees https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/computing-it/degrees
  • rootend 2y ago
    Sounds like a difficult state to be in, perhaps you can consider one of the online programs offered by US universities like OMSCS by Georgia tech, or OMSC by UT austin, there are several others like that. They offer same curriculum as the in-house program but with online delivery and are flexible for working professionals
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Well, I'm 41, and have about the same amount of experience, so you're not alone. In the USA, the main barrier for education is whether you can afford it, or don't mind being strapped with massive debt. It's not a great time for us, but freelancing has been a lifesaver. Have you tried getting on a freelancing platform? It's probably easier to get work as a C++ developer than have to compete with the thousands of Wordpress devs.
• burner420042 2y ago
  Having made this decision myself here is my direct experience over the last 6 months being an out of work tech worker like you, no degree at all, that also lives on the US West Coast. Most places require a comp sci degree regardless of how good you are. It's rude to say that but I've found this to be true. I've also now realized that someone with a comp sci degree saying you don't need one, well they don't know what they're talking about. Being 6 months in to my degree program, also a boot camp grad but no degree, and in this US economy just having that I'm in school has made the difference. I added the degree to LinkedIn and my resume one month ago and I started getting interviews. Causation or correlation I don't know, I think a bit of both. I'm getting strong loops and it's come up now in every interview. Keep in mind that I have a very respectable DevOps background already, but I was getting anywhere. For Software Dev roles, I really think having the degree matters that much more and would reward you accordingly. I assume we're talking about the school everyone asks about? A comp sci degree for 15k (so 18 months?) that's * ABET accredited * and * regionally accredited * which it is, checks all the necessary boxes, and would leave you open to get an in-person Comp Sci master's degree from Georgia Tech (I called) and probably from any good school on the US West Coast. Before committing I asked 3 recruiters that I know, plus some hiring managers, and they all responded the same: "We'd interview you for a Software Developer role if you had a comp sci degree. We really don't care that it's from that school." No to DeVry, ITT Tech, or City U, yes to the 'owl' one. Do it.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • burner420042 2y ago
    In reading some of your responses to other posts I wanted to add that I'm answering the question realizing that you don't have a degree of any kind. Having a degree normalizes you to people with limited time or imagination - the upside is you spend far less time having to explain or prove your value. Getting a degree now is also a commitment to stop doing things the hard way. :-) A degree in something is a minimum, a STEM degree is better, but since you're here now starting out, the direct route is one I really would recommend. Edit: this question really fires me up and I've added to it a bit.
• caseyy 2y ago
  In the AAA games industry, a portfolio speaks much louder than a degree. Junior software engineers with five simple, well-coded games (such as Asteroids, Lunar Lander, etc) on GitHub stand head and shoulders above people fresh out of university without a portfolio in the recruitment process. Senior software engineers with experience developing large AAA titles are in much higher demand than those with a PhD in game systems, such as AI or networking, which is practically non-competitive. So I'd say the degree doesn't matter, at least in this corner of software engineering. I entered the gaming industry a long time ago as a software engineer without a computer science degree. Later, I thought I'd get one online, just as you are considering. It was reasonably cheap compared to my income, and I thought I had the extra hours for an evening online course. But I found it to be very demoralizing. I'd be micro-optimizing containers in AAA game engines, shaving microseconds off operations by reducing CPU cache misses on target consoles in the morning, and earning a 60% grade on my JavaScript game in the afternoon, because I didn't follow the method shown in class. I also did poorly in CS math, especially with formal proofs, which were a lot of fun for math enthusiasts but grating for me, being an expert in game math and graphics math at the time. When my fourth semester rolled around, I found only one or two modules to be somewhat useful, while others, such as HTML web design, had no bearing on my profession. I dropped out about halfway through my degree, leaving me with a lot of money spent but nothing to show for it. I could have forced myself through it, but it would have been on pure discipline (which is easier for some than it is for me!) My advice is: don't get a CS degree because it's doable. Get it if you need it for something, like if you wish to enter a specific industry that requires a meaningful academic experience, such as research. Your degree will then serve a purpose. Otherwise, you might feel like you're not getting much out of it, and it won't be easy to justify carrying through. Especially if you're already performing at a level significantly higher than what a degree puts you on. Or maybe the purpose a degree could serve for you is fun - perhaps the academics would be rewarding for you in a way that doesn't have to flow into your work, or you get networking opportunities that a good uni/college affords. But my view is: it's a significant commitment, so there has to be a meaningful, clear reason to do it. Otherwise, it will be all cost and no return.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Makes sense. Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm involved in several projects, as well as being the sole developer for a SaaS that I co-own (I make exactly 0 dollars from it right now). I have to solve all kinds of difficult problems, which excites me to no end. I can see how I could have the same demoralizing experience you did. In my bootcamp, I got a D on my portfolio because I didn't follow directions. I've been praised many times after the fact on this same portfolio. I'm not an academic person at all, so maybe this would be a slog for me. I did get an A+ in said bootcamp though, not that that matters. At the moment, I feel like a degree is necessary for any job I would want to get given the job market. Call it future proofing if you will.
• harrisonjackson 2y ago
  I wouldn't recommend at this point in your career/life. Unless you are going to a tier 1 school you're just going to set your career back. If I was you, then I'd keep hustling with upwork and whatever else you need to while building and launching something meaningful on your own in the space you want to work. - slap a founder title up on your linkedin (set the start date to now) - ship something not terrible - continue iterating on it while becoming a better engineer, product manager, designer, etc all on your own - learn to use AI coding tools really well - clone and enhance the features of competitors - talk about it a lot - go to conferences for the business sector and for the tech stack - network a ton Then apply for a job if you still want to in 1-2 years. You'll have met a lot of people doing that and can hit them up or apply to competitors in the space using your startup as the perfect showcase. When they ask why you are quitting just say you are super passionate about the space but couldn't raise money or going on a solo founder was terrible and you want to join a team. And just don't apply for jobs at FANG ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ there are so many other companies out there that need people with the type of experience you'd have after 6 months to a year of the above. They are looking for folks with FANG background, tier 1 college/other pedigree, or specific experience building the same thing.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Thank you for your insight. I will not be going to any prestigious school. It's not in the cards for me. I actually do own a SaaS along with my business partner. I'm not the founder, but we bought the platform from the founders who were looking to bail. It's a logistics company that is used by mainly bike messengers. 20+ companies around the world use it. I would say I've shipped a few non-terrible things so far. I built an application that runs on a POS kiosk that kids scan their little IDs on when they are tardy to class. It's in a few dozen schools in the LA area. I do have a pretty interesting resume. It has caught the eyes of people, but it takes someone who had an unconventional history like myself to appreciate it. I haven't submitted a job application in over a year. I just haven't seen the point of it given the market. I'm also not interested in FAANG at all. This would be more of a future proofing move.
• Alive-in-2025 2y ago
  Yes, it will help. There Will eventually be an employer that wants you to have a degree in cs to have a high-level CS job. At the same time, the world is full of intelligent, successful engineers who don't have a CS degree. And there's another separation between people with any kind of degree and people with some kind of degree doing programming.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I don't have "any kind of degree"
• o1o1o1 2y ago
  From my experience when I lived in Europe, the following is important to get a job in IT: - Degree, a general one is good, a specific one related to the job is better (especially in the German-speaking area, I don't know about the others) - Experience, especially in well-known big companies They used a trick there to reduce the leverage of employees in IT and created the myth of a "shortage of skilled workers" by repeatedly publishing this in various media, creating fake statistics and ghost job ads. A lot of foreigners jumped in and also the existing workforce, afraid of losing their jobs or not finding a new one, didn't bother to negotiate well anymore and are doing jobs for really bad money (e.g. 50k/year). Now you add the "AI will replace you anyway" mantra, which initially increases this fear and the willingness of employees to work for low wages. The effect is a workforce that is well educated and willing to work for food and shelter, no questions asked. If you're trying to compete, a degree helps, but in the end you may be undercut by someone with the same degree (with better grades) but who takes less money because they don't know their worth. My opinion: try to get out of Europe, run your own business or find a different career / business opportunity. These are bad times for CS employees in Europe.
  • hayst4ck 2y ago
    They also said shortage of skilled workers in the US. It's kind of upsetting because it's supposed to be the nature of free markets that demand increases price in order to better allocate labor resources, that means wages should be going up. So the message shouldn't be there's a shortage, the message should be that it's in high demand and that should be matched by increased starting salaries. When anyone said "shortage of skilled workers" they meant "shortage of cheap satisfactory labor"/"software costs too much".
    • thorin 2y ago
      Shortage of workers is an excuse to bring in offshoring or short term visas / save money. I would prefer strategic longer term permanent immigration of quality candidates rather than moving the skills and knowledge overseas.
  • thorin 2y ago
    I'm not sure getting out of Europe would help that. Where would you suggest, maybe Canada, Australia, New Zealand but the situation will continue to be volatile I think. I don't think going to US is ideal at the current time for Europeans. Running a business is probably the best option if you can do something in demand. A different career is probably only realistic if you're very young as the only things I could suggest that would be a lot better (financially) might be by training as a professional Accountant, Lawyer or Doctor (and all of these might also be threatened by AI. This is a UK perspective not Europe, but there are a lot of parallels (until recently) and I know Europe pretty well.
• SoftTalker 2y ago
  Startups may be less picky. If you want to work in startups it's probably more important to get involved in startup networks. I can't really say more than that as I don't work in startups. For many other software jobs, a degree will be required. This is an applicant filter if nothing else. These places (banks, insurance companies, manufacturers, any number of business where software enables what they do but is not the product they sell), can be boring but they can be great places to work if you want boring. Regular hours, low stress, good benefits. They will almost all require degrees. From which institution might be less important as long as it's reasonably legitimate.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Exactly what I'm thinking right now. Thank's for sharing.
• tibbar 2y ago
  > Is this a bad idea? Is this a good idea? Is this necessary if I want to be employable in the future? I wish anyone could really tell you. I mean, I sure don't know, and I've been a hiring manager in SF for years. I've done countless interviews, read countless resumes, all that. I can tell you what I would do if I were trying to bootstrap my way into the industry, though: 1. Do something difficult and unusual in technology, and do it in public. Basically set a goal that sounds crazy to achieve, something that would require an unreasonable amount of effort and time, and then go do it and publicize it. Note that getting a degree is difficult and time-consuming, but not really very unusual or impressive. 2. Interact with real people in technology as much as possible. Not just "networking", but actually immersing into the tech community, learning all the events and meetups and hackathons and doing as much of that as possible. Note that a degree will probably help you meet a lot of other students, but not necessarily active tech professionals. As with all challenging goals, my real goal would be to spend a certain amount of time on them every day, taking whatever the next step is. I am quite confident that if you put as much effort into this path as you would a degree, you will land a better job, sooner than the other way.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Thank you. I'm not really looking for a job at the moment, I'm just having what is maybe an irrational fear of being made obsolete. I've hit the point of no return. I've been out of the automotive game for a while now, and I think I might rather die than go back to that. Maybe I've done too much doomscrolling on Linked In.
    • tibbar 2y ago
      As with most things in life, small iterative improvements are usually the most reliable path. You've already got contract work, so try to get more of that, maybe you can get a fulltime job with one of those clients, now you have a resume item, etc. It's the same for most everyone - we get a little experience, a bit of a resume, and one day we get another step on the ladder, and one day another. Actually doing a whole degree program is just so much freakin' work and money for a single line on your resume that I can think of a lot of equally time consuming things that would have a better payoff. I've done night classes too and - whew. Never again.
• RainyDayTmrw 2y ago
  It's complicated. I work at a "target" software company (competes with FAANG on prestige, but not literally FAANG). I interview candidates for senior+ roles, approximately one per week. By the time a candidate gets to me, I read their resume only for icebreakers/small-talk, and I couldn't care less what their resume says otherwise. But, I also happen to know that our internal recruiters, who are the first line of screening, are quite honestly capricious, and they'll dump resumes for any little thing, including, unfortunately in your case, the lack of a degree.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Sounds like the lesson here is to bypass the recruiter huh?
    • RainyDayTmrw 2y ago
      If you have the opportunity, getting your resume directly into the hands of a hiring manager is the biggest positive boost, bar none. But I recognize that having that option available or not is a matter of happenstance, on some big or small scale in one's life, more than anything else.
      • platevoltage 2y ago
        I am in the somewhat unique position where I can take those opportunities as they come as I'm earning money and staying afloat. I could stand to do more networking though.
    • liveoneggs 2y ago
      HR sucking is how consulting firms get in and rent-seek
    • collingreen 2y ago
      This is ALWAYS the lesson
  • apercu 2y ago
    > the lack of a degree. Lack of a degree or lack of a C.S. degree?
• satisfice 2y ago
  Degrees don’t matter in most cases. Distinguish yourself by doing the work and displaying it and talking about it. Everybody is having a hard time finding a job. If you get a degree, you will do all that work and simply be competing with 100,000 other people who also have degrees and also want work. I compete with them without institutional education. Although at my stage of career no one ever asks about my education.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Appreciate it! This is the path I'm working on right now.
• anshumankmr 2y ago
  Never stopped mattering in my opinion...
• dvdhs 2y ago
  Maybe not so much in a perfect world, but in reality it is often the case that some kind of filtering is needed. I work at a place that's fairly competitive to get into -- some positions get upwards of 20-30K applications for one position. Most of the engineering team spends enough time interviewing as is, so often it is, unfortunately, the case that stuff like your degree and what school you went to does materially (negatively) impact your chances. At some point, one must find a way to cut down these numbers. Cannot speak for the average case, though.
• snihalani 2y ago
  I think getting a degree ensures your answers are similar to what your interviewer is trained on. Being untraditional in your education means you have to figure out how to package and sell your ideas. Getting a degree ensures its harder to reject you. Instead of finding an offer after 500 interviews, now you may have to do 400. For me, getting a master's degree was more useful than getting a bachelor's. since you are in bay area, I can grab coffee if that'd be useful for you. Is contributing to open source an option for you instead?
  • jader201 2y ago
    > Instead of finding an offer after 500 interviews, now you may have to do 400. Holy cow, is that really how many interviews it takes to get hired these days? It’s been about 10 years since I changed jobs, and then it took less than maybe 10 interviews. > For me, getting a master's degree was more useful than getting a bachelor's. I’m not sure this is the norm. I know very few people that I’ve worked with or have interviewed that have masters degrees. I’ve worked with + interviewed maybe close to 300 SWEs, and probably fewer than 5%, if that, have/had masters degrees.
    • platevoltage 2y ago
      I got an interview with the worst resume ever when covid hiring was ramping up. It ended up not working out. When the layoffs started shortly after, I submitted hundreds and got nothing.
    • scarface_74 2y ago
      > Holy cow, is that really how many interviews it takes to get hired these days? I’m 50 and have been working as a software developer or closely adjacent for almost 30 years. I’ve never seen a job market like this. Even back in 2000-2001 as a regular old enterprise dev with 3 years of experience, jobs were plentiful in Atlanta doing corporate dev. I got my third job late 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis relatively quickly and had two offers. Fast forward to 2023. I was looking for regular old enterprise dev jobs where they wanted C# developers with AWS experience as a Plan B. I had 15+ years of C# experience, 7 leading projects and 6 years of AWS experience including 3.5 working at AWS (Professional Services). I heard crickets sending out hundreds of resumes looking for remote opportunities. Every single opening had hundreds of applicants (LinkedIn shows you). The same happened in 2024 when I was looking again. I was able to get offers quickly both times for my “Plan A” jobs based on my network and in 2023, I found a couple of companies where the “nice to have” was implementing and modifying an open source “AWS Solution” for which I was a major contributor. My “Plan A” was a full time job at a third party AWS consulting company where I would be leading cloud + app dev projects. But, most people don’t have my share of “unfair advantages”.
• pyreko 2y ago
  As some other people have mentioned, one area it _could_ matter is if you are ever looking to work in another country and need to apply for a work visa.
• fallingknife 2y ago
  I also don't have a CS degree and took the bootcamp route, but I have found very much that companies really do only care about what you know. It was difficult to get the first offer, but since then it's not been a problem at all. I have had multiple jobs and offers from startups to FAANG companies and the only reaction that I have ever gotten from telling people I did a bootcamp and switched careers in my early 30s was positive.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• xarope 2y ago
  I am in a position where I am a key decision maker in hiring for IT and also help in vetting resumes for other department/functions. In a nutshell: Get that degree. There are plenty of reasons (working in a team, demonstrated ability to organize, hit timelines, etc etc), but the single most important, IMHO, is that it will restrict your ability to grow in the company; HR have all sorts of talent and high potential mapping tables, and all the mid-top spots have degree/professional certification requirements. It would take a very special reason to get an exception, and what you've written wouldn't qualify.
• citadel_melon 2y ago
  If you live in SF, you can get a cheap degree from a California community college. It will be 10-50 dollars per semester. You can even transfer the last year of the degree to a UC if you care for a name-brand school, but I don’t think that would be necessary with work experience.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    A full on Bachelors at community college? interesting. I live right next door to SF in Oakland.
• RamblingCTO 2y ago
  I'll say yes. I am the only one in the company that has a degree (MSc compsci). I know stuff the others never heard of. Your exposure to obscure things in uni are really worth the time for deeper topics. I focused on machine learning and had classes like operations research, non-linear optimization or complexity theory & approximation algorithms and I kid you not, I could make use of these things quite a lot to find efficient issues for a harder problem. If the course is just software engineering, don't bother imho. If it's compsci, do it. Do the hard stuff. You'll have an edge the others don't. For context: I studied in Germany at a proper Uni and focused more and had quite the mathematical and theoretical curriculum. Not sure what the international situation is. Also, yes, a paper helps. You have exposure to a variety of topics on a deeper level. That can come in handy!
  • Sammi 2y ago
    Skip the easy stuff and spend your energy on the hard stuff is excellent advice for anyone doing a cs degree. The easy stuff you can google. The hard stuff is what will mold your mind into a sharp tool and you will never get the same chance to spend your time on it as you do in uni.
    • RamblingCTO 2y ago
      100%! I learned so much at a really high rate, I'll never ever have the time and focus to do that again, most probably. It felt really good to dig deep
      • david_guda 2y ago
        That, and some subjects are really hard to learn at home/at job. Learning Linear algebra at home would be really hard, but learning some new programming language would work fine.
        • fuzztester 1y ago
          why is learning linear algebra at home hard? no knowledge of this area, hence asking.
• turtleyacht 2y ago
  Is a degree necessary for applying to random job postings? Yes. > lifestyle Starting a family at one point may factor into this; you'll be happier having something stable thanks to the degree that helped place you. You can always self-study off .edu syllabi, books, and all that. Not always at the most convenient times, but the knowledge is out there. Make sure the degree is from a reputable school. It's possibly the most important money spent. Online bachelor's for computer science, though. I don't know if online is best there. Experience will bolster that for sure. Just don't know how ruthless the automated filters are. It's less risk to find out at $15k than $150k, at least.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Are any dev jobs really stable at this point though?
    • turtleyacht 2y ago
      They're only as stable as the situation warrants. Everyone has their own reasons to stay or search. If we add a layer of indirection, computer science is a training and mindset, a practice. This is a job that never goes; then employed or unemployed is just a curious financial state.
• queenkjuul 2y ago
  I have absolutely zero interest in a CS degree, i never even really wanted a career in software at all, but i did an apprenticeship which placed me at a Fortune 500 and i rolled that into my current gig, so nearing 5 years of serious software engineering experience, but I'm still pretty well convinced i won't find another job without a degree (even though my company just interviewed 2 degree-less people for a role at the same level as mine, and my coworkers never even believe me when i say i didn't to to college lol). If you have the motivation and the funds, i don't think it can hurt. As for me, I'll take solace in knowing i can scrape by on Upwork and my below average Chicago rent if i get fired lol. I may have the funds but i without question do not have the motivation.
• muzani 2y ago
  Strong yes. AI is the ultimate generalist, but it's not a specialist unless the operator is a specialist. It'll output the average of what it's trained on. It may know the new stuff, but unless someone programs it to return the new data, it'll return some old outdated stack. You also have to know your terms to communicate properly with it. Like my favorite these days is asking it to decompose a conditional. You never needed this term when you were coding, but when AI writes the code, you'll say things like this all the time. I'm still quoting books from 1999 to vibe coders and vibe coding tools, the foundations matter. Eventually the seniors will retire and they need to hire the juniors. Or someone hires Devin for a job and realizes Devin needs a buddy. The other major trend nobody is talking about is that people are dropping out of college because they expect AI to take jobs. A friend teaches game dev and says about 1 in 7 are attending. For game dev. That's the most interesting lecture you can get into. How are the other fields faring? College is also being filled up with idiots who use ChatGPT and probably won't understand what they learned. There's going to be a huge gap in demand one day and demand will surge like it did in 2016. If anything, it's a bad time for boot camps because AI can pass all the interviews easily.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Thank you.
• slackfan 2y ago
  Do it if you want to, and can afford it now without putting undue financial burden on yourself. But you have already said you've done the boot camp mill, maybe educating yourself isn't the path forward? Keep in mind that there's not an insignificant amount of hiring managers like myself who don't care, and actively will toss your resume in the trash if the only thing on it is a CS degree. I generally have found CS degree holders to be poorer devs in general, less inventive, more interested in dogma than development. For what it's worth I also have a network of excellent junior and mid-level engineers who haven't been able to land a gig in the tech world for years at this point, and are moving on to other things one way or another. Right now this is a very "you REALLY want to be here" market.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Perhaps it's not. I've got a much better resume than I did a year ago, and a year before that. I'm actively doing real work. I'm gradually checking the experience boxes as time goes on. Maybe that's my path.
• gsch1 2y ago
  Yes, companies do value CS degrees. They are not obsolete. The era when jobs were handed out without proof of qualifications has passed. Nowadays, companies seek evidence that you are a valuable asset, and a respected Computer Science degree is often highly regarded.
• smarri 2y ago
  I got a Masters in Software Development, part time evenings, studied over 3 years. I don't think it's strictly necessary, but in my experience, it doesn't harm your prospects. I think it's nice to have the combination of experience and education, personally. Certainly don't underestimate the commitment if you study in your spare time. Also, you may enjoy the course, work on new things, meet new people - all can be valuable in their own right.
• anothereng 2y ago
  Look up degree hacking or get an online cs degree. I think it's worth it
• cml123 2y ago
  I'll share my own story and try to answer your question in that context. I was working as an underwriting assistant at an insurance company and became interested in landing a job as a software engineer. I took a Visual Basic class in high school and a Java class in college. I dropped out of a biology degree late during my second year of college. I managed to get a job at my company's IT helpdesk, supporting a specific application on a level 2 team. I did a 6 month coding bootcamp for node/react, which I left feeling like I had a good baseline in coding ability. While working on the IT helpdesk, I built a webapp that allowed external insurance agents to submit tickets online by integrating with our ticket system API, but I still couldn't get an interview for a dev gig. I eventually asked an internal recruiter why I was never hearing back, and they stated that they were only interested in hiring straight from our college hire program. I was pretty crushed. Out of the blue, six months after coding bootcamp ended, a project manager whom I had known in the past asked me if I'd be interested in a SQL-heavy systems analyst job. I happily took that, and while on the job, I did some internal instructor-led Java training. While I was an analyst, I was able to start taking on some small pieces of work on a Spring Java backend. I was able to get employed as an engineer on my team after working a little over a year as an analyst. I am currently working on finishing up a dual Comp Sci and Math degree. This is to better my long term job safety and career prospects. I am going at a pace where my entire degree will be paid for by my company, without me fronting any money. Ultimately I was able to get employed as an engineer having done a coding bootcamp without a degree, but I think that was only possible because: - I was well networked at my company and maintained relationships over years with prior colleagues - I had substantial domain experience, in insurance, in my company's systems, its business processes, etc - I developed a career path that spanned multiple steps to get to engineer, with each role building on the prior I don't think I would have been able to get employed as an engineer outside my company without some in-between steps
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Thank you for sharing.
• dxs 2y ago
  Education can never hurt. True => "I am the only one in the company that has a degree (MSc compsci). I know stuff the others never heard of." -- RamblingCTO Learning on the job will teach you part of what others know, and none of the rest. Learning on your own will teach you what you're interested in and none of what you hate. I'm no shining example. My whole life has been a series of mistakes, but I've been happily unemployed 20 years as of July 7, 2025, after I quit my last job (in state government) after deciding that I'd rather die than to keep working there. I'm good at saving money, so I'm OK, and living in Ecuador now, which is nice. The advice for decades has been to get to know people, and find work through your connections. I'd say now, looking back, as a pathologically shy person, that that sort of social engineering is probably the key, along with being helpful on the job and always appearing happy and upbeat. People really like enthusiastic people who are always cheerful, and that would be good for you if you can pile it on top of expertise, especially if it's accompanied by credentials. Education is something that no one can ever take away from you. It's a tool you can use any way you see fit. What sort of education and how much are for you to decide. Me, I spent 10 years struggling after high school before finally getting a B.A in English. Three years later, after deciding that I wasn't going anywhere, I started over and ultimately got a B.S. in physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry, finishing that after 12 more years (with a big break in the middle to save up enough money to continue). And pretty much did shit work in state government for the rest of my working life. If doing it over, I would be a LOT more aggressive and not hope that I'd get rewarded for doing good work. You have to go and grab what you need or fail boldly, I think. And you are the only one who cares how your life works out, despite what you might or might not hear from anyone else, let alone an employer. A couple of interesting posts by David Heinemeier Hansson... Why we won't hire a junior with five years of experience. (April 8, 2025) https://world.hey.com/dhh/why-we-won-t-hire-a-junior-with-five-years-of-experience-0a548994 https://world.hey.com/dhh/why-we-won-t-hire-a-junior-with-fi... We'll always need junior programmers. (April 24, 2025) https://world.hey.com/dhh/we-ll-always-need-junior-programmers-69ddb4a1 https://world.hey.com/dhh/we-ll-always-need-junior-programme...
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    Thank you for sharing.
• iamwpj 2y ago
  I was self taught for 10 years in the field and found a program that offers a Master's degree with work experience accounting for the undergrad. I didn't take calculus or stats in my undergrad and that has caused some headaches in completing the degree, but the amount of stuff I was exposed to in such a short period of time was incredible. Very quickly into the program I was stuck by just how unethical it was for me, with no experience and certification to make guarantees and promises to an employer who didn't know better. In most fields the knowledge worker could be held liable for making this kind of "contract" (think lawyers, electricians, doctors, etc.). You can be driven and motivated. You might have learned a ton on your own. You cannot know what you don't know. People in these comments will trip over each other to explain that education is subjective and you won't use any of that stuff in the real world. They have stories about wasted classes and dusty academics. The reality is much more boring. * Lectures are very effective ways of provide a curated bit of information. * Structured practice and verification (homework and grades) are quick ways to ensure that the start of learning has occurred. * Working with your peers will likely expose strengths and weaknesses in your existing understanding of the subject matter. This often helps everyone involved. * Reading academic publications and textbooks helps to standardize the shared understanding of the subject and ensures that future efforts to expand the field or solve hard problems are more effective. You said in your post that you're not sure where to go with your career and your opportunities aren't evident to you --- go to school and give yourself some deeper knowledge. It'll help you figure out how to navigate the field.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    A masters with no undergrad? I didn't even know that was a thing.
    • iamwpj 2y ago
      It requires an undergrad, just not in computer science.
      • platevoltage 2y ago
        oh okay. thats different
• mixmastamyk 2y ago
  You can get a job in times of plenty without a BS CS degree. I have many times. But, getting a job at a highly sought after company is quite difficult. In lean times, every job is difficult to land and the coveted are ~impossible. Even getting to a phone screen. Going back, I’d get the full BS degree. Even though they were teaching Fortran at the time.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I'm not terribly interested in sought after companies, especially now that they are doing massive layoffs, and branding these people as "low performers". I just have an irrational fear of being unemployable, which I feel like at the moment even though I have 2 long term clients that see me as un-replaceable (not exactly true, but I'm fine with it).
    • mixmastamyk 2y ago
      It's not merely that they are popular or "cool." They are typically the ones with the best pay, benefits, and workplace environment, that boost your resume in the future. Others with lower pay, but good benefits like JPL won't even consider you without a science degree.
• Suppafly 2y ago
  >Several years ago, we were all told "You don't need a degree bro, degrees are obsolete bro, companies only care about what you know". You were lied to then. It will definitely help you land a corporate job once you decide to stop freelancing.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I mean, we heard this from Google executives and Elon Musk. Seems like the corporations were the ones perpetuating the lies.
• fooker 2y ago
  > Does it matter? Yes. > online CS degree. No. Most of the value of a degree is the connections you build and get opportunities through. You're not going to get much better at software development. You'll learn some core CS/math concepts that can help later if you want to get into niche roles though. But that's not something most people benefit from, by definition of 'niche'.
  • platevoltage 2y ago
    I'm more concerned with my ability to get past the filters/hard requirements.
    • fooker 2y ago
      That's where a good network helps much more than a degree. Get referred or better, knowing the hiring manager makes every filter a moot point.
• kasekopf99 1y ago
  As someone who has to make hiring decisions based on 100s of resumes, I look at degrees as allowing me to "fast forward" a step. If I'm looking for coding expertise, I can look for degrees where a university has effectively "checked the box" for me. It doesn't mean that someone without a degree is any less skilled. It just means that a third party is giving me more confidence in the skills I'm looking for.
• ravish0007 1y ago
  csprimer.com teachyourselfcs.com
• wendy4151 1y ago
  [dead]
• crush_robo_1536 1y ago
  I think they'll still continue to matter. Ofc if you're just trying to write some simple code you don't really need a degree, but I'd trust someone who understands the fundamentals of computing way more than someone who doesn't when it comes to working on complex optimization problems (like squeezing the last bit of efficiency from your CPUs). I know AI is getting really good at all this stuff, but I still think that there have to be people that understand this stuff deeply (even if they use AI to develop this deep understanding). It also shouldn't take 4 years for a CS degree now imo given that it is so much easier to grasp concepts with LLM assisted learning.
• earthen4060 1y ago
  Software developer for the last 7 years, started as a graphic designer, turned frontend, then backend engineer (was lucky to work in a product team where I was offered the opportunity to learn and switch careers). Last 4 years solely backend. No education, decided to pursue the cs degree anyways (no scared to lose this career) but instead to create new opportunities to grow and specialize. Having a cs degree opens up the opportunity for masters and other things I’m considering to pursue in the future to not stay a software developer forever. Besides that I am really learning a lot of stuff and it did make me a better developer. Following IU.org online degree, it’s quite modest but it is real and accredited, difficult too. Good luck!