Survive multiple serious (but not overly specific) technical interviews, have a decent and/or interesting body of work online, and demonstrable involvement and

Survive multiple serious (but not overly specific) technical interviews, have a decent and/or interesting body of work online, and demonstrable involvement and working habits from contribution to open-source projects, mailing lists, tech journals (my last hire had several Linux-specific articles carried by an online publisher over 10 years ago), etc. A degree is honestly one of the least useful metrics for actual talent out there. Its value is basically limited to showing a tolerance (but not necessarily an aptitude) for bureaucracy and corporate mind games.