You can get quite far without knowing them. But to be honest, I think this wasn't super different 20 years ago. I mean there was Basic, Delphi and people were w

You can get quite far without knowing them. But to be honest, I think this wasn't super different 20 years ago. I mean there was Basic, Delphi and people were writing software without knowing what they were doing - of course me included :-). Today people attempt to do this with React or App programming. People get somewhere but without any understanding how this stuff works, usually a wall gets hit after a certain complexity emerges. Without understand how a computer works, programs can becomes ridiculously unmaintainable und slow. The bare minimum is probably knowing that there is a thing called complexity, that there are Hash maps, sorting algorithms, things like discs, memory, networks, all operating at different speed. Even if you don't do the implementations of these things yourself - who does? - you don't get far if you have no clue or you know the facts but ignore them. Disclaimer: I didn't study CS, had it as minor subject though and when through interviews where they asked this stuff