Comment Re:Required & Beneficial (Score 1) 292
A degree (in literally anything) has benefits. A degree in a CS field has more benefits, regardless of when it was obtained.
I consider myself "self taught" - in that I taught myself to program when I was 6 and was already being paid to code by the time I was 16. That was over 20 years ago so I have a fair amount of experience under my belt too. But I still consider my formal education an essential part of the engineer I am today, and make use of it every single day.
Hiring is a tricky business. I have one document and maybe a couple of hours of conversation to figure out how good you are, how well you'd fit in my organization, how much you have lied about your skills, how much you'd benefit from & enjoy the role (strangely enough I don't want to hire someone who'd be miserable) and a bunch of other stuff. An appropriate degree from a decent school tells me a lot about you, along with your past work experience. The lack of a degree isn't a dealbreaker but you better be damn impressive everywhere else.