The post sounds a bit emotionally charged... I've met people who can code and optimize SGD from scratch, but never wrote linked list more than once or twice in their life. I've also met people who are so proud of their algorithm and data structure knowledge, they tried to use it everywhere, like connecting instances in a linked list, which killed efficiency. If anyone self taught is reading this, don't be discouraged, keep learning and you'll get there, some of the best developers I know were self taught.