No degree here. I took on work at a low salary for the first few years, viewing it as "paid education". Now working for Microsoft
Let's not move the bar of this discussion to "first job"; it's not a useful metric. Better to discuss position attained by some age
I know a SWE at Google who is <20 and does not have a degree. So it certainly is possible, and it implies that you don't need 10+ years of experience to break into FAANG without a bachelor's.
I feel like you're pulling the HN staple "anti anecdata" card when my point wasn't "you're wrong because I exist" & was instead "you're wrong because your metric says people who skip post secondary, collect a meagre salary initially, & eventually end up at FAANG by age 30 should've paid thousands of dollars to attend post secondary until their mid twenties to end up there instead."
And in many EU countries its effectively a hard NO