&gt; It&#x27;s not about &quot;how strong is the force in you&quot;, it&#x27;s about &quot;how much experience and wisdom do you have in real world situations&quot;.<p>For someone without a CS degree, building side projects [and sharing them] speaks volumes too. This matters more at startups, small companies, or anywhere hiring is less formulaic.<p>To OP:<p>3. You could try fixing a bug on an open source project of interest to you and see if your PR gets accepted.<p>Another idea is to work on algorithmic problems in your spare time.  Project Euler (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;projecteuler.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;projecteuler.net&#x2F;</a>) is my current favorite site for that.