I’m Michael. I was a principal engineer at Facebook from 2009 to 2017, where I was the top code contributor of all time and also conducted hundreds of interviews. I recently co-founded Formation.dev, an engineering fellowship that trains and refers engineers directly into big tech. Ask me Anything!

Hi nice to meet you. So at the top tier tech companies, a degree really isn't that important or a requirement to get or do a job in most cases. But that said, if you are in South America and would want to move to the United States, where most of these companies are based, then you might have immigration issues not having a degree. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm from Canada originally, and know that not having a degree can make it harder to physically go to the USA. There could be a few paths. There are some decent engineering markets in South America, like in Brazil, parts of Mexico, Columbia. I would maybe see if you can get a job at a company there is EITHER one of the leading South American based tech companies OR a company that does a lot of work for a big tech company in the USA. Once you have a year or more experience on paper that will get you more interview opportunities and you can go from there. Additionally, it's a really good time right now to work remotely as many companies, like Airbnb, are supporting remote work. I don't know the laws in your specific country, but if you are employed at a local Airbnb office for example, your country might have employment laws about you should look into (for example if there is a job posting that requires a degree, and you get it without a degree, someone might be able to sue the company because they gave the job to someone not meeting the qualifications... this is a hypothetical but I've seen stuff like this in some places)