> I'll start by saying that I've worked with many self taught programmers and they were all excellent (perhaps there was a selection bias?). They also always ha

> I'll start by saying that I've worked with many self taught programmers and they were all excellent (perhaps there was a selection bias?). They also always had humorous holes in their knowledge (which they were always quick to rectify). My guess here is that the selection bias arises because self-taught programmers that get to the point of applying for professional SWE roles have probably put significant amounts of work into learning how to program. I can actually go one better with this though: one of the better junior engineers I've worked with didn't even have a high school diploma. Full disclosure: I am also a mostly self-taught programmer, so I may be biased here, as well. ;)