Do Developers Need College Degrees?

In the latter part, this post stresses on 'keep learning'. That's the only thing the people who have this doubt in their head need to know.

I have met great developers who never went to college and some developers who can't even ship a small segment of a product with Masters.

Define succeed. Nice job, nice wife, etc... or FU money level of success?

I can only speak from my experience hiring and getting hired but all things being equal that piece of paper will likely get you hired over the other applicant(s). For inexperienced folks it also makes getting those critical first positions easier, which will allow you to quickly move up, or out, in the field.

I question the validity of their claim that by omitting a degree over 60% of the job postings didn't require a degree of some sort (see my previous point). Hiring staff is a real pain when you're not one of the big boys so casting a wider net is somewhat necessary.

It's quite ironic, I have a degree in (Theoretical) Physics but it's is waaaay easier to find work on pure programming/Web projects and not something with numbers involved. And the latter is basically what I've been drilled for in my studies.

No.

Some people are self taught and self motivated, and they are often more capable than someone whose primary exposure to development (or technology beyond consumer use) was through a CS program. That is not to suggest that CS degrees are unnecessary, but once you understand the entirety of someones experience and knowledge you will often find their degree or lack thereof is entirely irrelevant.

Of course there are some employers who won't even acknowledge someones resume exists without a degree, which I have always found silly.

Succeed personally: no. Some dev jobs obviously require a lot of foundational knowledge. I wouldn't want to have a colleague who didn't know linear algebra, simply because that's important in my field. That's not important for making Wordpress sites.

I think there are things "every good developer should know" such as knowledge about how cpus work, how OS'es work, how some important algorithms work, some basic set theory and complexity etc. All of this is doable without a degree, but I'd probably be more willing to bet that someone with a degree knows it, than someone without. Also of course - there are jobs that are doable without knowing foundations, but I'd call those "code monkey jobs" and whether such a job constitutes success I guess depends on who you ask. And what it pays.

Most importantly, when I recruit I don't see the diploma as evidence of what they know but as evidence that they could learn, quickly. If the diploma is from a prestigeous school but says they failed math 101 four times over that would make me doubt their capacity. Being able to pick something up is the capability I'm looking for. A curious mind, with a taste for the abstract. A diploma is just one clue.