I'm hoping to find a job without a degree, perhaps as a Rails/Vue developer. A couple of concerns/questions/points:

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1. I've worked for two startups in the past, in 2010-2012... I know that's a long time ago. Should I even bother mentioning this on my resume, since it was so long ago?
2. I've done freelance work more recently, for 2 years, from 2016-2018. I worked with a guy who ran his own business and managed clients, and I essentially did the coding work while he did the design work, as well as the client management and interaction. I don't really have much in terms of a portfolio from this time... most of the work I did was back-end work, and I doubt the guy would let me log in to his clients' machines and let me take code samples, lol. Would this have much weight on a resume? Doing freelance work?
3. I'm working on a portfolio at the moment. I'm working on a project with a Rails backend and a Vue frontend. It's the only project I've managed to maintain in my portfolio. I hope to add some more, hoping this will boost my chances.

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Am I just wasting my time here hoping to find a job as say, a rails developer? Should I take out some student loans and get a degree?