Any software developers here without a college degree?

Question

15 week bootcamp or 4 years of college for cs.

Answer 1

A previous answerer seemed to claim that you absolutely need a degree to get a SWE job, but... that's completely incorrect. It's misleading, and he seemed to want to imply that without a college education, you'll never get hired as a developer. That is patently false.

For certain, extremely complex software engineer jobs, having a degree is not exactly necessary, but it can help you stand out from the crowd. Mostly those jobs are probably exactly what you'd expect. For example, if you wanna be the head machine learning engineer over at Facebook, you're probably going to need to have a PhD in computer science.

However, for the *vast* majority of jobs, you'll notice the job postings say "Required: College degree *or equivalent experience*". In other words, if you don't have a college degree, they want you to prove that you can do the work via projects you've worked on (be those personal OR professional!).

Worse, a lot of colleges aren't exactly great at teaching real-world programming. They teach a lot of algorithms and programming theory, but they don't really dive into simple stuff like "how to make a web app". I really couldn't care less if you can tell me the 10 millionth Fibonacci number in O(N) time if you can't center a <div> on a page. A great bootcamp, by way of focusing solely on actual job skills, can be far more valuable than a 4 year college degree.

Answer 2

HealyUnit It's really good to read your answer. I was starting to think that I was the only one who'd seen this question who's known of or worked with bootcamp graduates or self-taught software engineers.

For anyone that's reading, I'm certainly not the only software engineer at my company who doesn't have a college/university degree. Also, my company is one of over a hundred in my city who have hired those without such degrees. This is not any way meant to diminish the value of a degree. It's just meant to highlight that there are plenty of jobs for which experience can be a substitute for the lack of a degree.

Answer 3

@CamelBeatsSnake (also, does anyone else think this comment system needs a major overhaul? Supporting replies and markdown, maybe?).
Exactly. As I mentioned, there are certainly certain jobs where they'd expect a CS degree (often graduate level) as a sort of "I'm the best of the best" and "I'm an expert in theory behind what I'm writing" kinda thing.
But frankly, if someone showed up to a job interview with a degree and no projects (and yes, personal projects count!), most companies would reject them.

Answer 4

Jean Carlo Roman This decision can depend on so many factors.

What kind of job you want. What's the market like where you want to work (e.g. is there a big shortage of devs). How much do you already know. Are you willing to start at a very low level and learn a lot on the job etc.

I am a bootcamp graduate and I have a what I consider to be a good job: a software engineer position with a reputable international company. The bootcamp I attended has a very good success rate of getting people jobs, but those jobs are almost all very junior level.

I'm in my 3rd job since graduating.