So you're a scientist. And you think you need more understanding of algorithms/data structures and what's actually happening underneath the code that you are wr

So you're a scientist. And you think you need more understanding of algorithms/data structures and what's actually happening underneath the code that you are writing, right? It does help. But from my experience from hiring coders, most science oriented people already had better understanding of the basics than your average coder. That's because they want to understand more deeply what's happening and what they're doing. It sounds like you have a decent background and I doubt these side projects went to waste. Even technologies that go away in a year still build some abstractions in your brain that you may not even be aware of that make learning much easier in the future. Also, remember that with the stack nowadays it's really rare for somebody to have a decent grasp of what's actually happening down to the hardware. Plus you can do some great science using a microscope without having any idea about optics. So to me you just sound like somebody who you want to hire. "I know very little" because you keep exploring and want deep understanding so you know about vast amounts of knowledge and experience to be had. Many coders would say "I know a lot" just because they know how to achieve goals they had in the past.