Remember that you're comparing MS in the 90s to Google today, which is an unfair comparison. When I worked at Google (2004-2007), a few of the smartest develope

Remember that you're comparing MS in the 90s to Google today, which is an unfair comparison. When I worked at Google (2004-2007), a few of the smartest developers I knew didn't have college degrees. People like Aaron Boodman, who wrote Greasemonkey before he was hired, and was responsible for Google Gears. They were all one-off cases, who were either recruited for their skills or who tried many times until they finally got an interview. These people were hired directly into the engineering organization - it would probably have been easier to start as a QA contractor and then attempt to move up later (which is what Zeke did). It's definitely an uphill battle if you don't have a CS degree from a top college. I will be the first to admit that having a top university on my resume made it significantly easier to get hired. Remember that, with the sheer volume of resumes that these companies get, it's impossible to interview everyone. I did a lot of phone screens, and of the people with exceptional resumes, about 90% weren't that impressive when you talked to them on the phone. It just wasn't possible to talk to everyone. If you don't have a degree but are an exceptional programmer, getting a job at a top software company is going to take a lot more perseverance, but it is definitely doable. However, in most cases it's probably going to take more effort than just figuring out how to get the degree.