My path to software development was: Hardware Engineer, Helpdesk Analyst, self-taught Junior C# Developer...
Will not studying CS become a hinderance later in my career?

.

You've demonstrated the ability to work independently and aptitude to learn. What more can a degree realistically give you? What is it that you are worried about?

@ymas i don't know to which extent this is true, but i've heard several companies don't consider hiring someone without degree

@YouAreAPIRate can you give an example of said companies? "equivalent experience" is on practically all the job descriptions I see (I'm freelance now though). It would be very interesting to see the turnover rate at those companies.

@ymas unfortunately i cant, i've only recited what i read on some rants comments. My first (and currently only) job didnt require a degree because im only doing basic stuff (at first bugfixing and now web-development in react), therefore i've never been in a situation before where employers said "no degree no job"

@YouAreAPIRate it all depends on the job market. I've been fortunate to have done projects in three continents and I have seen the differences in attitude toward degrees first hand in several different markets. I can state with a bit of confidence that those who can't spot talent and care more about how many letters of the alphabet are behind your name lose out ... a lot.

@ymas can you say something how it is germany? Because that's where im from.

@YouAreAPIRate I've worked with an engineering team based in Germany on image processing software. I work with another freelancer (I'll admit I do have a degree in science) but my colleague doesn't and they frequently pay him to go and help them out. Most of the work I do is with colleagues that don't have degrees and they're all doing quite well. In fact most of the people that get me work don't have a degree. I just help out on the stuff they're not interested in learning about.

@YouAreAPIRate @ymas Thanks for the discussion. I just wondered if maybe there might be a gap in my knowledge, or if I might not get a job just because a degree is expected. I've got about 3 years developing experience now, so I imagine prospective employers will be more interested in that than my lack of formal education.

@pda87 there is a gap in everyones' knowledge. There are massive black holes in my knowledge. When I get a project, I do two views, top down, bottom up. Find out the core skills I need to learn (and then discover new black holes etc) until I have enough knowledge to solve the problem. I haven't met someone that knows everything and if there was such a person, the world would be a very different place. You need to get quantitative, just like when you learned c#, apply the same skills to find out exactly what it is you are missing, make a baseline and improve on it. I don't see what a degree is going to offer you, unless you have something specific on your mind.

Will it hinder you? Probably, to a minor degree.
Will you care? Probably not!

The main thing (in my experience!) a degree teaches you that being self taught does not is the very basics. That means things like how a computer works on a very low level, data structures and algorithms, performance and optimization, and the philosophy and differences in thinking behind object-oriented vs functional vs logical vs imperative programming.

@brahn you are quite right, those topics are indeed covered in the early years of a degree programme, however, you do not need a degree to learn about them.

@ymas Oh, I'm not saying you have to have a degree to know about these topics, or that they are impossible to learn without organized teaching.
It's just that from my experience self-taught programmers often end up skipping those steps because they are not required to start producing code.

@brahn I totally agree with you, but I'm still not seeing the advantage of a degree though. The information can be easily picked up in practically any introductory CS book and there are plenty of places to get help. You are correct in pointing out that knowledge of the fundamentals is advantageous, however, I posit that learning the fundamentals on your own is much more effective negating the need for a degree.