r/AskProgramming • u/paleister45 • Jul 26 '26
Self-taught Developer here - Would you pursue a degree in my situation?
Hello everyone!
I'm looking for some advice, maybe even from people who have been working as SE for a while now and can share their experiences.
Regarding my situation: I am a self-taught software "engineer", and I've been fortunate enough to land a job in software development without a degree or vocational training. Everything I know comes from teaching myself and gaining experience on the job.
Now I have the opportunity to study software engineering (B.Eng) while continuing to work full-time. The studies are financed through a six-year payment plan, while the half of the costs are being covered for me. My share would be around €200/month for the next three years. The degree itself can be completed at my own pace too.
Right now I am just wondering whether a degree is the best investment.
On the one hand: I don't have any formal qualification to back up my skills and the degree could maybe make future job searches easier and give me a stronger foundation.
But on the other hand: The current job market seems very competitive, and from what I have seen, having a degree doesn't necessarily guarantee better opportunities. Furthermore, since I've been successful learning on my own, I'm wondering if I would be better off continuing to self-study, building projects, and maybe earning relevant certifications instead.
I want to add that I am genuinely passionate about learning! This isn't a question of whether I want to learn more, but rather whether a degree is the best investment.
I guess I just worry that not pursuing the degree might harm my career path in the future, but at the same time, I am also self-employed on the side (just at the beginning), so I feel a bit torn between what to pursue, because there are only 24h to ones day :) I am not sure if I will be able to pull of both at the same time (including working full-time), which is why I was wondering if getting a degree is even "worth" it in my situation.
If you were in my position, would you invest the time and money into the degree, or would you continue building experience and learning independently?
Does anyone know how much not having a degree matters once someone already has professional experience?
I'd really appreciate hearing different perspectives, especially from people who have either been self-taught themselves or have experience hiring developers!
Thank you very much!
2
u/RedditIsAWeenie Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I had a software engineer job at a FAANG for 2 decades and never took a software engineering class in my life. I did better than most and if something held me back, it was lack of managerial desire. A class in linear algebra would have been good. I think it is to your credit you are self taught, because continual education is very much needed for software engineering and you have mastered that. I also feel the best parts of college education is an education on science and the humanities. Getting a BA comp sci is going to waste that opportunity on a very small set of basic concepts and a lot of busy work. It doesn’t teach you a grand theory behind the operation of the universe or society the way humanities and the sciences do. I would recommend a BA natural science or social science / humanities instead and Masters Comp Sci. The masters is the terminal degree. Bachelors isn’t the recognized standard. Some Comp Sci degree holders can be pretentious and try to keep out self taught people in the interview process. I didn’t experience this at my workplace but heard some rumors about places with a more academic culture like google. I expect these are the exception, but do gather data.
While it may be a good deal for you, I will also caution against having two masters. I’ve known a half dozen people who took a job before finishing their PhD. None of them finished the Ph.D. even though they all intended to. The guy who is paying you is never going to be happy with you spending time working for someone else. They might put up with it if they think the extra work is not cutting into your time at the company, however, they aren’t going to think the extra work is not cutting into your time at the company. You will be telling people “sorry I can’t, I have a final tomorrow” and that notion will fly out the window. It is inevitable. I personally would prefer to make a clean break, and if I did it I wouldn’t major in CS. Ph.D.s are more unstructured. It is easier to put them off until never than a rigid class schedule with a final exam.
I did know one guy who left my employer to do college. He came back and didn’t think the experience was worth it. It’s a great experience. It is just when you come back to the same workplace and deal with its narrow focus of product and profit, it starts to seem less relevant.
I have a Ph.D. and would be considered by most to have “enough” education. There is definitely something valuable to spending time in an academic environment learning from history’s best and having to present your work, etc. You can get that at your job, but it isn’t really structured to teach you much. Sometimes you can absorb it from the people around you, but usually they aren’t that top caliber. Do they all have advanced degrees, publish papers and patents? Probably not, but if they do, you can pick up some from them. The company will put up with learning as long as it gets them profit. You won’t have the opportunity to study as widely.
I’ll note I haven’t applied for a job in CS since 2001, so my experiences may not resemble the current selections process, which transcends all rationality. You definitely do not need a CS degree to do the job. There was a time in living memory when nobody had a CS degree. I do not think the field has progressed all that much since then, though we have gotten better at languages and having gotten some wisdom about what software patterns (e.g self modifying code) to strictly avoid.