I've been a developer for 2 years at a wonderful company, and am leaving soon for trade school to develop my passion in masonry. That said, I don't want to go to trade school until I have a solid foundation and credibility in software development, and can move on to a decent job in either market.
That said, this was my first development job, and I had pretty much worked my way up from a data-entry position.
I have no college degree in software or computer science, and I'm working on a mostly unrelated degree.
So, onto the question. How many years of Software Development does one have to work before one is credible enough to hired onto another software development position without a college degree? Are there any credentials (certs.) that I should get to put on my resume? How can I best show that I know my nitty gritty coding practices?