Perhaps in the US 20 years ago it was more attainable. Self taught in the UK is pretty tough, I lucked out getting a real engineering job at 19 in London, then

Perhaps in the US 20 years ago it was more attainable. Self taught in the UK is pretty tough, I lucked out getting a real engineering job at 19 in London, then I went into contracting which was great money. Now I’m working at a startup which I think has a solid team, but even with a decade+ of experience I’ve never even gotten a call back for roles at Google, Meta or the like. Did interview with apple once for a low rate contracting role, pretty sure I gave them a superior architecture for their solution in the interview and they took it and ran with it, didn’t hear back. I’ve had a heavy interest in finance since a young teenager but haven’t really be able to land an interview there either. I’m genuinely considering getting a degree, I guess at 28 it’s not too late, though I feel I’ve wasted a lot of time.