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Continuing an IT Career Without a Degree?
skaffen42 asks: "Recently there have been a lot of employment related "ask slashdot" posts. There have been questions about hot technologies, the international job market, certification, college and even landing a regular job! I find myself in a situation that have not been covered these posts. I dropped out of college after a year and went to work as a programmer. Now, ten years later, I am a senior systems engineer at a medium sized software company. I have challenging work, a decent salary and good prospects for advancement. But we all know that in this economy even a good job like this can disappear without warning. Unfortunately I don't have a degree. Which brings me to my question: a couple of years ago anybody could get a job if they could spell "C" and someone like me with nearly a decade of experience could usually pick and choose between job opportunities. Those days are (unfortunately) long gone. What I want to know is how much my lack of a degree will count against me in the present job market? And what can I do to make my lack of a degree less of a liability? What can I do so that I can also have these kind of problems?"
As someone just beginning in your path, I would say congratulations! Having 10 years of real experience will do a lot for your job prospects.
Medium sized companies are probably your best bet though. If they are too small, you need to have a great personality, because they are probably not knowledgable enough to appreciate the effect of your experience. On the other hand, if they are too large, they will be more interested in a degree than actually examining the depth and breadth of your knowledge.
But where you are, going back for a serious degree is something you should only do if you want to learn something, not just to prove yourself.
This is interesting as i'm in the same situation, I was a contractor and have just decided to close my company. I have no degree, in fact I have no job.
I last worked about 12 months ago, it's tough at the moment, there is work going, but you have to be flexible. I guess i'm not as I want to work in Europe and there's little going with lots of major competition.
A degree really depends upon what location or country your in. The USA is more anal over a degree, Asia is too.
What a degree does do, is make it easier when applying blind for a job to the clowns, sorry I mean Human Resources, they can use this as an indication of your technical skill.
Again this is crap as everyone knows that after a couple of years in the frantic workplace, you've more than got the equivalent.
There are also baselines of knowledge that a degree requires you to know, and if IT is your hobby as well as your career, then you'll probably be clued up on this.
Sounds like RHIC. RHIC will pull in a contractor at $cheap, work them until they display their gross incompetence, and then replace them with someone else, after making a 50-100% premium on what they're paying you. Of course, somehow, they stick with the company to do it all again.. RHIC is the one consulting firm I would just not enjoy working for. Ever.