Development experience on a relevant platform will pretty much always trump a degree in my hiring experience
That being said, I don't have a CS degree but have made my bones for the last 10-15 years in some sort of developer role. The thing I can justify that a bit because when I started building websites they we're usually some sort of static site, Java was in its infancy and database driven websites were a few years off. A large bulk of what modern day programming (particularly on the web) consists of was still being developed and I could learn these skills as they rose to prominence. I could pace the growth of the technology, grow with it without too much trouble. There's a whole generation of developers in their mid to late 30's who are in this boat. I'd hire a bunch of these guys in heartbeat and I'll pay them pretty well.
Now in my current role I'm hiring junior developers fairly regularly. In this role where I'm looking for guys who are younger, smart and capable but who I don't want to pay a ton of money for. If I'm looking for a guy in their early 20s for a junior role I look for 2 things, a CS (or sometimes EE or CE) degree AND experience building something on their own. I've gotten a few guys through who started coding on their own in late high school but a lot of times they don't make the cut. In this case you don't need to have a CS degree, but just to leap the recruiters hurdles you better have one.
Mid-30s here, and I'm with you completely. I remember when I was in school I was pretty bored with what was being taught, however a couple things (specifically database theory) got me revved up and I kinda took off on my own. Acing my classes without attending them because I was busy building the department's intranet (none of the professors knew what an Intranet was until I explained it to them).
I dropped out one year before completing my program. Which is kind of funny because it really wouldn't have taken any effort. Instead I was chomping at the bit to work on this new and exciting back-end web stuff, so I went and got a contract job with a small webshop who didn't really understand what I was doing either at first, but we did some great work and had some great success.
My profs were great because they realized I was on to something pretty nifty and tried to make it easy for me to pursue it. They also tried to learn some of the stuff I was learning (I was teaching them in a way). In the end I think both sides benefitted from it.
Okay funny, not sure you'll ever see this but, I just followed your profile to your site to linked in (curiousity thing).
I think we might have crossed paths once, I was the lead ITV engineer at TechTV doing an Interactive IO Portal for CableVision that Extend designed. Worked mainly with a woman dev who's name I can't remember right now.
That being said, I don't have a CS degree but have made my bones for the last 10-15 years in some sort of developer role. The thing I can justify that a bit because when I started building websites they we're usually some sort of static site, Java was in its infancy and database driven websites were a few years off. A large bulk of what modern day programming (particularly on the web) consists of was still being developed and I could learn these skills as they rose to prominence. I could pace the growth of the technology, grow with it without too much trouble. There's a whole generation of developers in their mid to late 30's who are in this boat. I'd hire a bunch of these guys in heartbeat and I'll pay them pretty well.
Now in my current role I'm hiring junior developers fairly regularly. In this role where I'm looking for guys who are younger, smart and capable but who I don't want to pay a ton of money for. If I'm looking for a guy in their early 20s for a junior role I look for 2 things, a CS (or sometimes EE or CE) degree AND experience building something on their own. I've gotten a few guys through who started coding on their own in late high school but a lot of times they don't make the cut. In this case you don't need to have a CS degree, but just to leap the recruiters hurdles you better have one.