Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
tldr; skip to the --------
Last time I "Asked HN", I was in a very different place. Fresh out of a bootcamp, right at the peak, and subsequent collapse of the Covid hiring. It didn't go well. However, another HN reader turned me on to Upwork, and over the last 2 years, I've been building modest freelancing career.
I came from an automotive background where I made awful money, moved to the Bay Area, became a bike messenger in San Francisco because I didn't know what to do with myself, and once again made awful money.
I had been a hobbyist programmer for years by this point, so I got sucked into the bootcamp racket. The program was great. I got what I needed out of it, although the certificate wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.
I landed an ongoing contract on Upwork, which I still work on which really changed everything for me. I also landed an internship at Akamai as a Cloud Support Engineer, which never resulted in employment, but I'm not sure it's the type of work that I really want to be doing. It was more of a foot in the door type thing for me.
Either way, I am now making a living off of software development. A lucrative living? no, but it works for my lifestyle.
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".
I found out that this wasn't true the hard way, however now I at least have some professional experience to my name. The job market is bad for everyone right now. I'm not necessarily looking for a job ATM, but at some point, the grind and hustle of freelancing might either fizzle out, or I might just get tired of it.
Now that that's out of the way, here is my question...
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I've thought about doing an online CS degree. It seems like this can be done for less than 15 grand, and also doable while still making money.
Is this a bad idea? Is this a good idea? Is this necessary if I want to be employable in the future?
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!
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.
> They need ways to eliminate chunks of the applications. Illogical ways of eliminating candidates are acceptable because they are better than having no way
And this is how Apple/Google end up rejecting candidates to work on open source libraries...despite the candidates being the very authors they are wed out as they haven't spent months preparing for the interview.
Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science (GA Tech OMSCS) is really good about letting you go as fast or as slow as you want. If you are sufficiently motivated (and life circumstances permitting, granted), it's very doable as a nights and weekends type of thing.
I did it over 5 years and it would consume all my free time during crunch periods. Definitely make sure your family is supportive - it’s like having a second part time job with occasional overtime.
Having said that - I believe many companies view OMSCS as a strong signal. It’s a difficult degree with high drop out rate.
Most relevant response yet. Thank you.
This is exactly the category that I'm in. A couple of years ago I applied to a large company, with a referral. 0-2 years experience and a non-specific bachelor's required. I got my rejection in 15 minutes, after business hours. My resume didn't even see human eyes. Did I mention I had a referral?
That sounds hard. I got my bsc and msc in cs in 2015 exactly because I was afraid of this.
I know maybe a couple of guys who've had successful careers in cs despite having no degree. Those guys are especially talented and industrious. Real rock stars. I'm an average slob in comparison and I feel lucky to have my papers, as I have a decent track record of getting interviews. Small local companies seem to respond the best to my resume. Big places and remote jobs seem to have a much higher bar to clear.
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.
Come up with a better system and you will be rich. "Better" should be scalable, measurable, objective etc.
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.
WGU course content is a complete joke- I would look negatively on that if I saw it
Well I hope you're not in charge of hiring people.
I was a faculty member there for a few years and I completely agree.
True enough, and given that no company under 1000 headcount bothers to verify bachelor's degrees, OP should just lie to get through the initial filter.
Funnily enough, I tried wording my Berkeley Bootcamp a little differently on my resume to be a little more ambiguous at one point in time. I got called out on that pretty quick. Not my a company, but by someone I had review it.
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.
Sounds like the lesson here is to bypass the recruiter huh?
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.
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.
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.
I take issue with your idea that it is "tier 2+" that are the only programs that are worth it. When you make statements like that, or prognostications of that nature, you have to think about how it actually is in reality and not as the kinds of base opinions that are found in Reddit CS careers subs. I think this varies widely for employers and even within teams of large employers, depending on who is the person doing the hiring. Even at a simplistic level having a degree from a regionally accredited institutions will decide whether you pass the first HR screen, so it cannot be equivalent to no credential at all.
This just fails a basic real world sensibility test. Are you saying a CS grade from Montana State University that is a hiring manager at FAANG (maybe even the most famous one) is going to consider someone with a degree from Stevens or Florida Institute of Technology to be equivalent to someone without a degree? I don't know if you are aware but there many people employed CS grads that did not attend the top 3. Also, I don't know about tiers, but these rankings are largely based on research and not quality of undergraduate program or outcomes.
The idea of telling someone that doesn't have a degree that wants to know of if attaining a degree could likely help their career that they should not go if it is not "tier 2+," whatever that is, is just kind of malpractice. Georgia Tech is not the only school that offers such a degree that is equivalent to their in-person program. I would agree that you should choose a school that has a traditional program for which this online program is just a different modality, rather than one of these online-only predatory type of schools.
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.
There are things you know, things you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know.
College is pretty good about the last category, but really if you went through syllabi, scanned through lecture notes, and paged through the reading materials listed, you're probably ahead of most students in that category.
That exercise alone will probably give you a good idea of the technical value of the education.
I would add that words don't have objective complete meanings. Words are indirect references to ideas and ideas are like raw marble in your head, carved into meaningful shapes by working with and manipulating those ideas.
If you bring out a word like "consistency", college is very much about shaping the idea behind that word into increasingly more crisp and formal meanings, especially meanings that can then interact with ideas behind other words like "atomicity" or "scale".
Even for someone with a degree in philosophy I think the last couple paragraphs are over-thinking things a lot here. I have never heard university described that way. The Rumsfeld thing about "unknowns unknowns" is clever I guess. :)
Your answer to 1 troubles me. A CS degree program greatly expands your toolbox BEFORE you need those tools. The problem I have with "when I need to" is how do you know now is the time? It's a chicken-and-egg thing. If an employer hears "I'll go learn that and get back to you" too often, you will not work there for long.
For 2, fair enough. What school will give you a BS degree for <15K?
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 (:
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.
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.
As below, Physics and Maths degrees tend to have high entry requirements, large amounts of hands on (classroom or labs) hours, lots of highly focussed students. I observed this while studying Electronic Engineering, which I would say is similar but more practical and with lower entrance requirements. I'm not sure where computer science would fit into this as it's a newer discipline with less stringent core requirements. Other IT courses may be less rigorous and include people that are less focussed on their education relatively.
As above I would say that the physics students I know are often the ones going furthest in their careers either in research, computing (know a few at google), consulting e.g. PWC etc
> 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.
Hah, I also noticed that. For some reason, ex-army programmers really excel in their junior years (or sometimes even just months), too. Do you think it's the attitude towards problem-solving?
I really don't know. This is spitballing, but I think maybe physicists are clever analysts while CS people are prone to "clever" implementations.
I remember thinking "oh, you understand, like actually understand" to them in particular, so maybe it's that they spend more time understanding before doing.
"ex-army programmers really excel in their junior years"
My feeling is that they're just built different, military, especially in US will either teach you or make you disciplined (not something I'd say about my country, you'll learn how to get hazed and drink). If you have a task, well, you better solve it quick, no distractions.
> I personally consider a physics degree to be a top tier signal of programming ability
Some CS programs have moved away from heavy maths requirements over the last 2 decades, outside a few maths-heavy specific CS courses.
Physics degrees still mean you have very decent maths, but CS degrees are not necessarily as strong a signifier of it.
I suspect that is the difference, particularly if you are actually working on tricky programming tasks.
> 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.
I don't know about that. I feel like if big tech moved away from IQ test like questions like the MS/FB of old then there was a reason.
And that reason was legal precedent: it's illegal to administer an IQ test as a condition of employment. So they administer a disguised IQ test in the form of Leetcode questions instead.
Huh? They used to ask brain teaser like questions, not anything that I would consider to actually be an IQ test or really even all that close to one in a legal way.
Yep. IMO that's the way ANY degree is looked at (aside from Medical, Law, etc.. you know the drill).
You want a lower level administrative job? You better have a degree so we know that you're not stupid. Now you get to pay off your loans with 20 bucks an hour.
> 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.
In my experience those with math degrees too. Maybe the structured methods of analysis and problem solving.
> but I can say that people I interviewed with degrees generally did better
I can also confirm that.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that people with a formal degree are on average better prepared to interviews.
But sadly, it has absolutely no correlation with work performance. Zero, none.
In fact, I can say that the overwhelming majority of non graduates did far better on the job: more motivated, stays longer, hungrier to learn and prove themselves.
> 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.
I’ve also found this to be true. And math degrees.
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.
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.
I guess I should have been more clear in my post. I don't have any degree.
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.
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.
You don’t have a degree at the moment but in three to six months you can have a CS degree if you think it’s worth your time. It’s been done in three months.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25467900
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.
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.
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).
> If you have 20 years of experience I wonder if there are options for you to have that recognized towards a degree
Isn't what those scam "universities" do? Sell you a diploma based on your "life experience"?
Point being, a degree awarded like that may not have any value.
I definitely don't have 20 years of experience. I did learn some HTML when I was 14 and made a geocities page though. It had animated GIFs and everything. I even made some stuff with Macromedia Flash ;).
I see. I assumed. It's hard to give generic advice since everyone's situation is unique. One thing is you can try just taking a few courses. You could consider studying something completely different. Or you can use the vast resources online to learn something new (e.g. Coursera?) and see what you think.
AI could be changing a lot of what we do as well.
I wouldn't spend time and money on something that's iffy. A real science bachelors degree is at least 3 years of fairly hard work. You could do that part-time over a longer period. That's not going to necessarily make you a great programmer - a lot of that is just doing it and learning. Which you don't need a degree or a bootcamp for. But it's going to be somewhat limiting not to understand the "science" part, how much depends on the specific role.
I work with someone who got a diploma, got hired, is doing great, and also going back to school to finish his degree part-time. I also studied part remote part on site to finish the courses I needed while having a full time job and other responsibilities. It's tough but doable.
I feel like I should clarify. I am currently working part time on a contract basis for 3 different companies. I'm also running a small SaaS.
I'm at the point where if there is a tool or technology I need to learn to solve a specific problem, I can do that in a reasonable time amount of time.
My post was to see if getting a degree is worth it in an age where they are becoming more important to get past the recruiter than they were 5+ years 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.
Exactly what I'm thinking right now. Thank's for sharing.
> 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.
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.
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.
Yeah. So far the iterative approach has been working out. I haven't really tested the waters in a while.
I just wish that "single line" wasn't such a deal breaker.
It is indeed unfortunate, and for what it's worth I think you are not the person people are generally trying to filter out by requiring a degree, given your skills and track record. So you probably would benefit from meeting more people in the industry in person. It also sounds like you've made good choices so far in getting your new career started. I hope you get everything you're going for.
Yeah you're probably right. Maybe I'll do what I'm doing for the time being, and start spending time applying once when or if the market gets better. I was in a much different spot last time I sent out an application. I've learned a lot since then.
That seems a lot like "draw the rest of the owl"[1] unfortunately. How will an otherwise relative newcomer know what would be considered challenging, how to go about making it happening, and that they can make it happen?
[1]: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl
If I were in this situation, and the goal is to draw an owl, and I can spend a year on it, then I'm going to spend an hour tonight looking at owls and maybe doodling a bit. I'm not going to worry about getting the owl perfect right away. Maybe next week I'll get super into owl feet, and the week after into learning good drawing posture. At some point I'll definitely be attending some meetup of nature-drawing enthusiasts.
I'm going to combine a general direction with a lot of time and horsepower and exploration and I will end up with a great owl drawing at the end. The odds are that I end up drawing the owl after only a few weeks because it's not as hard as I thought, but I discover some other really cool goals with a better payoff by then.
There's a lot of alpha in spending an unreasonable amount of time on interesting goals.
To answer your questions directly:
> How will an otherwise relative newcomer know what would be considered challenging
Just pick something that sounds challenging to you! You will learn a lot about what the scene considers challenging/interesting as you go. You can always update the goal.
> how to go about making it happening
Research. Start with stupid questions about the parts that are initially apparent. Keep a list of things that you don't know how to even begin to tackle, and over time, deep dive into items on the list. You will find that the resources/tricks/approaches you have grows as you go.
> and that they can make it happen?
You just have to really, really believe in yourself and in what you're trying to do. If you keep your health, that is all you really need.
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.
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.
Similar experience here but slightly different as I went to a top tier uni, but was also a decent coder before I started college. There was a lot of 'theory vs practice' snobbery where the former was emphasized above all, to the point of absurdity. Get ready to learn the secret knowledge of academia CS like that that functional languages are secretly the solution to everything - especially purely functional - no variables or even mutable state. And of course the secret to writing bug proof programs is to mathematically prove them - just ignore the fact you're simply kicking the can to new bugs, and the domain of programs you can realistically prove is minuscule. I would not hire 95% of my graduating peers. You're not going to enjoy your time.
If you were going to get a degree I'd get it in something where computer science is applied rather than the 'thing' itself - e.g. electrical engineering (or even aerospace depending on your mathiness). Also that's probably far more future proofed than a CS degree anyhow, and will get your feet in the door for degree requirements as well as open the door to lots of options that a CS degree wouldn't.
My experience is very similar but I will say that - as someone whose work is primarily in graphics and performance - that a lot of the math and theory has been really useful. The fawning over functional programming and formal proofs less so.
The biggest surprise when I got into the industry was how incredibly much necessary practical knowledge was not even hinted at in my education. Mainly related to actual tooling and processes required for large professional settings - not toy projects for five students doing something for a few weeks.
I take it you're not a big fan of functional programming ;)
I do like electrical engineering. I'm a huge Arduino-head, and am currently working on an embedded device for a client. The hardware design was relatively simple, but I have way more to learn in that area.
A degree is indeed more necessary in some disciplines/industries than others, and in some job markets rather than others. I'll say, sometimes what matters most is who you know, rather than what you know. Mentors and industry events are great for this. The right friends are two-thirds of the battle (and that alone is a reason some people attend expensive private universities).
And, of course, most tech companies will say that tech should be a meritocracy. Then they'll offer bonuses and incentives for anyone who can get a friend to fill an open role. Consider that.
I'm a fellow game programmer from Sweden. My experience is a little different. I've worked in everything from indie to AAA and been part of recruitment on the AAA side.
In my own experience, it is true that a portfolio really helps you stand out. Recruiters often ask for your GitHub profile or blog.
However, I've found that recruiting really differs based on studio size. Indies tend to take what the can get, often forming a ragtag team of people with various levels of education and experience. AAA studios, on the other hand, are very discerning when it comes to programmers. They often won't give you a chance unless you either have solid experience or a university degree from a university they know is up to par. That's because there are so many talented programmers who really want to work in AAA
That is true but do they discern based on degrees?
I found that AAA studios will pick someone with game shipping experience and some good code examples on GitHub over someone with a university degree 9 times out of 10.
The degree does matter a bit more in AAA, especially R&D roles. These studios actually have some R&D to do. But for other roles and other company sizes… does it truly matter in Sweden? I mean, wouldn’t a decent portfolio (including just a list of titles they worked on) jump anyone to the front of the shortlist, ahead of degrees but weaker experience?
That’s been my experience.
Absolutely. But the kind of portfolio and experience that allows you to jump the queue is really hard to attain without first having been hired. So a degree really helps landing a good first job and getting that experience.
Keep in mind that in Sweden an education is not a financial burden. All universities are free and you get a state scholarship (plus very reasonable student loans if you wish).
Speaking as someone in the games industry, I disagree with your take on portfolios. For reference, when I graduated college back in 2015 I had a portfolio of games, a successful and reasonably popular game mod and a bunch of relevant classwork. None of that even mildly got my foot in the door at any gaming companies, big or small or otherwise. Also of note, many software companies force you to sign an assignment of inventions agreement or a declaration that says you will not work in anything remotely related to software in your free time, which heavily restricts your ability to add to your portfolio.
What did help me however, is that I got a job at a smaller company working on software and then leveraged that professional experience into a job in the industry. That initial job I got was because of my computer science degree.
The importance of a CS degree was the stuff I learned across the degree, not stuff that was necessarily directly CS-related. Physics and math classes for example I did horrifically in as well, but those concepts I picked up have been useful to have in my toolkit.
My experience was very different. But I did start in the games industry as a contractor working for abysmally poor pay. If you take a portfolio with actually decent programming skills, and flush self-worth down the drain along with labor protections, I think it’s very possible to get the foot in the door.
Unfortunately, the self-worth, poor compensation and no protections part is key in how a lot of people make it into games, and get their first games shipped. Beyond that, it’s easier.
I’m not saying this is a good or bad way to enter the industry, by the way. I have a strong opinion on it, but it’s outside the scope of what I wanted to share.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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?
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
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.
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
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.
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
bingo
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I probably should have been more clear in my original post that I don't have a degree. Sometimes I forget that "a degree in something" is really the bare minimum for anyone to take you seriously. I specified a CS degree because what else would I do?
My answers could have been clearer - I totally get your question and where you're starting from. A CS degree from WGU is worth the time and money and it will open the doors you want it, especially with your existing professional experience. Hopefully, that clarifies things.
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
I'd love an opportunity to contribute to open source. There have been some small contributions I've made to open source libraries that needed a fix, but nothing major. Come to think of it, I submitted a pull request to Tauri and should probably check if it's approved or not.
I'm always down for networking in person. I don't know how DMing works on here, but my Github username is the same as my handle on here.
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.
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.
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".
Youtuber PolyMatter has very recently made a video about exactly this topic: https://youtu.be/bThPluSzlDU
I'll have a look. Thank you!
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.
I don't have "any kind of degree"
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.
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.
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
Never stopped mattering in my opinion...
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.
Appreciate it! This is the path I'm working on right now.
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.
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.
I have a close relative who made more than that doing more or less entry level manual labor for the local city govt.
People make more than that babysitting or working at Chick-fil-a.
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.
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.
Try to find someone who can give you a warm intro. Don't reach out to HR first.
totally. I avoid HR types whenever possible.