Well, without a piece of paper from some third party certifying they think you know CS, and then also without having stuff on Github, you're basically just aski

Well, without a piece of paper from some third party certifying they think you know CS, and then also without having stuff on Github, you're basically just asking anyone to take you at your word that you're a programmer. I interview regularly for fun and I do not have a degree, only projects on Github, and I have never once been asked about a CS education or background. In fact, I just went to an interview where they didn't even ask for my resume, just a link to my Github. This is really the meat of it: Being able to prove that you are a programmer is even more valuable than have a piece of paper from some third party certifying that they think you are a programmer. And this is really the weakness of a degree: Those universities cannot prove that you are a programmer. They can only certify that they made "teaching" of some of the knowledge base available to the person. This is less useful than a Github full of source code and a regular commit history, though less useless than a resume full of personal claims. In my social circles, I'm the guy everybody knows as the lifelong programmer. So there are late-bloomers that come to me asking for advice. I tell them to just start slapping shitty code into a Github account, and frankly it's the best thing they could do for themselves if they really want a job writing software.