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Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

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Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#41

Post by harrisonjackson »

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.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#42

Post by platevoltage »

caseyy wrote: post #34

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 s…

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.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#43

Post by Alive-in-2025 »

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.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#44

Post by burner420042 »

burner420042 wrote: post #29

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…

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.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#45

Post by TZubiri »

candiddevmike wrote: post #4

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

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#46

Post by Quarrel »

hayst4ck wrote: post #24

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 ti…

> 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.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#47

Post by caseyy »

platevoltage wrote: post #42
caseyy wrote: post #34

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 s…

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'v…

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.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#48

Post by o1o1o1 »

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.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#49

Post by SoftTalker »

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.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#50

Post by tibbar »

> 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.

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