While this sounds rational, I don't think that's how it works in most cases. Those who do the hiring usually prefer covering themselves by hiring someone with a degree rather than having to explain how they hired you because you made millions to someone else in the past. Also while we understand the hacker culture, many only understand "degree > job", they can't comprehend why you don't have a degree if you are so good.

> While this sounds rational, I don't think that's how it works in most cases. Those who do the hiring usually prefer covering themselves by hiring someone with a degree rather than having to explain how they hired you because you made millions to someone else in the past.

Definitely not my experience. I can count on one hand the number of employers who didn't want to proceed because of a lack of degree.

By that, do you mean <=5 of them, or given that your hand has 5 bits, <32 of them?

Given the rotating power of your average radius and ulna, isn't it possible to go all the way to <64 on single hand binary? (whole hand binary)

65 if you include sticking up the middle finger.

For data science specifically?

Remember, this question isn't about general CS.

The original comment sounded like general advice not specific to data science. I was thinking about it in the context of general CS/programming. But even in data science specifically, in my experience the focus in hiring is towards actual skills and less towards credentials/qualifications. I recently (few weeks ago) interviewed with a data science company for a data science role as someone with a software engineering background. It was a challenging interview but the subject of my degree never even came up and I got the job.

Data science is absolutely based on degree level. Software engineering, maybe 50% of people care about your degree.

I'm a data scientist at a research institution and I have no college degree. I'm self-taught and was originally hired as a software engineer on the basis of my projects and work experience.

> Remember, this question isn't about general CS.

What's your perception of data science vs CS, especially with respect to hiring?

Can you please elaborate more on the kind of work you do?

My impression is there is huge demand for data scientists (e.g. friend who is trying to hire someone and can't find anyone). Open Data Science Conference is running right now in Boston, 3600 attendees... it seems likely that if you can demonstrate skill, someone somewhere will hire you.

Depends a lot on the company. I know many successful programmers without a CS degree, for example.

That's exactly the problem, though: they're, I assume, programmers, not "data scientists". The notion that you can learn to program on your own and have the self-education result in a comparable (or better) effects than attending classes is widely accepted. I don't see the same attitude towards data scientists, which is what I think the OP is asking about.

This is great, however, the biggest roadblock might be the automated HR application scanning. As a victim of this, I'm back in school to finish my degree that I started 17 years ago.

How is it going? How do you do it?

I'm in a similar position right now, but every time I think about being subject to the bureaucracy again I shudder and choose to write interesting blog posts instead... It's not about the costs or the time; I feel like my dignity as a professional (and possibly even as a human being) would be threatened. It could be because of the way the higher education is set up in my country, though.

It's going well. It's tough working full time, kids, and accelerated full time courses. I have almost no free time what-so-ever. Currently taking a B.S. Computer Science program at Regis University.

>my dignity as would be threatened.. Bc thr way higher ed is set up in my country.

Would you mind elaborating on this?

In short, public universities and colleges have more than 50 years of history operating in an almost communist, authoritarian state. Private institutions are still widely considered to be worse than public, and the latter still operate on a presumption that students should be happy for just being accepted (and ripped off - sometimes unlawfully, as the public higher education is supposed to be free). In reality, when we chose to go all democratic in '89, the amount of money sent to the institutions diminished, while any change in their mode of operation was resisted, for 25 years and counting, so things only get worse since then.

It's hard to imagine without experiencing it firsthand. How could it be that big of a deal? But it is: you're treated not as a customer, not as a partner, but as a lowly supplicant in all your interactions with the institutions. You're expected to just "put up with it for a while" (like 3 to 5 years...) and drink some vodka if you get frustrated a bit too much.

Precisely. When giving career advice, remember to put your HR hat on. Most of the front lines receiving your resume don't think very much like an engineer. That's why names of languages make for such popular keywords.

May I ask which degree was that?

I'm working on B.S. in Computer Science

Do you take the classes at night and work full time during the day? That sounds tough considering you also have kids. Congratulations!

I think with DS more often than not you're being hired into an existing operation rather than being the first hire. Your hiring manager will likely be a DS guy with a higher degree who'll hardly believe that his PhD was a waste of time. Like finds like, people like me, and all that ...