I've been the CTO of a couple of software companies and am a hacker myself. I find it very hard to recruit good staff, as the article says, having a degree doesn't mean you're a good programmer. I expect any developer to have a degree, ideally a technical one. (I've taken a chance on self motivated people without this and have usually regretted it.) So that gets you in the door. What then drives my decision is your attitude. If you clearly love coding, learning how things work, can solve problems, aren't dogmatic over languages / OSs, etc. then you're down to the short list. If you can talk with enthusiasm about something you've done, be it professionally or as a hobby then you're likely to get an offer.