You are right, I am an exception - and I think those other commenters would also agree that we are exceptions. At two companies everyone else in my group had PhDs. And I've rarely worked with people who don't have at least Masters degrees. So, while it is possible to do this without a degree, it takes an unusual person. (I love to read. I would sometimes spend weekends at the Stanford library reading published papers. And I built my first computer from components after reading about logic gates and getting sample parts from chip vendors.)

I'm 64 and started as a mini computer tester in the mid 70s. Within two years I was forming my own programming team at one of the early microcomputer companies. I've been programming ever since.

That's great - did not having a degree ever cause you problems?

I'm in my 30s, no degree, my career is in infrastructure/sysadmin/networking/management, doing devops now. I've done datataking for a detector at the LHC, managed datacenters, etc. Not having a degree has never been a problem.