The autodidact path is a possible path, but its the harder one. To do it succesfully you have to go significantly above what your peers do to prove yourself. It also can often leave gaps in your knowledge and blindspots that you are unaware of.

In the world of software, that probably means having a portfolio of projects you can point to as examples (including but not neccesarily limited to open source projects. Other options include starting your own company (very hard), etc)