You started in a less competitive market.

Maybe. Or maybe it's because I built up my skills on my own before entering the "real" job market and already had a practical (writing production software for real needs) 5+ year head start on fresh grads, and the ability to convey my skill level in interviews. Not just some ToDo List portfolio app I and the other 50 students made in my 3 month web dev bootcamp. Or worse, as the senior project for my 4 year degree.

I'll probably sound full of myself - I'm certainly not some super star coder - but I started young, dove deep, and if I can say so myself I'm a pretty solid dev and have been for a long time.

These days I also hire developers, and don't give 2 shits about a degree or lack thereof. In my experience, a B.S. in C.S. barely distinguishes a person at all from anyone else. I've seen people with the degree who may as well have been a bum off the street, and people without that have left me in awe. The last developer I hired with a Bachelor's degree - it was in philosophy.