Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

Do realize, that even if it is harder, this is only initially. Once you have 3-4 years of experience in the field, the CS degree (or lack thereof) is irrelevant. I've had, on more than one occasion, bosses be surprised that I didn't have a degree when it came up, long after hiring me. No degree is mentioned on my resume and it never comes up in interviews-- in fact, it the last time anyone mentioned it was when I only had 2 years of experience, but I spent 2 years at my first job so it was no big deal.

The candidates I'm seeing with CS degrees are not really benefiting from that money. They still need a couple years in entry level positions to be useful. This will be the same for you... though you can start 4 years eariler than them.

Or put another way, if you just graduated from high school, if you go get a programming job-- any programmign job-- after 4 years you'll be a veteran and you'll be able to get higher level jobs than someone who goes to college and then, 4 years later, is getting entry level jobs.

The only situation this doesn't work is elitist institutions (like google) which have snobby hiring practices.

Alas, the lack of a CS degree doesn't stop google recruiters from constantly hounding me. (Each time I tell one I'm not interested, they wont' take "no" for an answer, but then when they go away a few months later a different one contacts me.)

Frankly, any company that won't hire you because you lack a degree, is a company not worth working for... because they have supplanted process and procedure for thinking.

Once you have enough confidence in your abilities to realize that, you'll stop worrying about it.

Absolutely! At Qype we have a few very good Ruby on Rails freelancers who did not study CS (one studied design) or didn't even study at all i.e. are self-taught.

You should definitely also consider doing freelance work, because no-one would ask for your degree anyway, all that matters is your skill. From my personal experience, however, it's unusual to find A-people in software who do not have a CS degree. They exist, but I think they're the exception rather than the rule. Often people without an academic background in CS lack the understanding of some fundamental concepts that underly almost everything in computing. They know how to write code and perhaps even what code and architectural patterns are, but they apply them without understanding the inherent principles that underpin them (there's only a handful of rules for instance to which all object oriented design patterns can be reduced to, such as abstraction of change.) On the other hand, I interviewed many people with university level degrees in CS who were not good at all. So a fancy degree is definitely no guarantee for skill.

If you apply, as you already mentioned, show proof of skill e.g. by linking your GitHub account. Good companies will make you do some sort of code or technical challenge anyway, so degree or not, all that matters is that you're good at what you're doing. I would also strongly encourage you to not only read books on programming language or frameworks. Bad developers focus too much on implementations rather than concepts. Technology will be replaced after a few years anyway, but if you have a good grasp on a few fundamentals of software engineering and software architecture, you will soon realize that every new technology introduced is usually just building on insights that have been around for decades (MVC frameworks for instance) and just take a slightly different angle at things.

You should learn more server-side programming, pick up Java even though its loathed around here. The stuff you'll learn from it is x2000 more than JS/Jquery, html/css and such web-browser programming. Its a steep steep learning curve, but its so much more worthwhile than merely making fancy web pages.

To answer your question, no you dont need a CS degree to get a job, but you do need something to show for, and a web app like all the startups are, is not something to show for. You need to make your own full-stack application, from the back to the front, and it has to be more than a blog or todo list, and you have to setup your own server from scratch with all the configurations. Can you do that? Then you can get a job.

Depends. If you want to work at Google, you'll probably need one. If you want to work for a startup, then you don't need a degree.

If you're a really good programmer, all of this doesn't matter.

This is my back-of-the-envelope speculation:

Suppose you go to UC Berkeley for CS. A nice, round, accurate number for that is ~$52,000/year. Suppose you work during for two of those years (I did, not everyone can), and your overall obligations are $208,000 for four years, less your wages -- say a meager $18,000/year. Also, you would have had to pay rent whether you went to school or not, so that is not truly a cost of the education. Let's say your rent is a $900/mo, so ~$11,000/year. Plus books and supplies, which may be as high as $2,000/year.

So we have roughly $140,000 for four years of education at a top notch program.

The other part of the equation requires more voodoo. I don't know off-hand what the numbers are for educated v. unschooled programmers. My anecdotal evidence for Cal alums is that entry-level offers are mostly in the $80-90,000 range, with a few as high as $100,000. Within five years, everyone I know of is solidly within the $120-$150,000 range of pay. Unless they've gone the startup route, in which case they are electing for minimal pay.

Personally, my expectation would be, having done hiring in the past and now, that there would be very few unschooled devs who could break $120,000. If you are very conservative in your estimate then, let's say the unschooled and the educated dev are separated by $10-$20,000 until year four -- so little advantage for the first four years. After year five, the educated dev pulls ahead, and by year ten is earning $160,000 whereas the unschooled dev has maxed out and is receiving only $120,000 plus COLA pay increases. So conservatively, by year ten, the gap in pay has already covered or will soon cover the cost of the education.

This also does not reflect the fact that because getting into the front door is not even possible in many places unless you have a degree, you cannot access any of the opportunities for startup equity. In my opinion, the gains in opportunity are far and away the more valuable win with a degree.

And yet, my favorite programmer, John Carmack, only attended university for two semesters.