What were the required skills that bootcampers lacked? Has anybody without a university degree succeeded there?

I just realized that you might not know what a "bootcamper" is. Facebook's hiring process generally goes like this:

- you're interviewed with a random team and evaluated if you'd be a good fit for the company.

- you are hired and go through a multi-week "bootcamp" to learn FB's vocabulary, processes, and tech stack, fixing some real bugs and implementing some real (but minor) features in the process.

- upon completing the bootcamp you seek a team that is of interest to you and if interest is mutual, you join the team. If you can't find a team after X weeks, you part ways with the company.

Knowledge of C (XROS was written in C and during the interviews the candidate rather uncommonly wasn't given a choice of programming language) and general understanding of how a computer works at a low level. Knowing the purpose of "volatile", understanding cache lines, mapping virtual memory to physical memory, DMA, this kind of thing.

I think everyone had a degree but looking at my degree (applied math) in particular nothing that I had learned at the uni was immediately useful and I think there isn't really anything that would prevent a smart person with a GED and some history of, say, Linux kernel contributions from succeeding on a team like this. Except may be a degree is needed for H1B visa for those who need it.