From my impression of this post, and your comments, you have a non-traditional upbringing, a nonconformist streak, and a problem committing to things. None of t

From my impression of this post, and your comments, you have a non-traditional upbringing, a nonconformist streak, and a problem committing to things. None of these are bad, but they aren't setting you up for success in a corporation that tries to de-risk it's hiring process, and find people who will fit the culture and make contributions for years. I think it's really important for you to understand that the world doesn't owe you anything, certainly not a pay raise after 2 months, and it's best to be humble. Being homeschooled gave you a huge leg up in developing dev skills and allowed you to get an IBM internship, but now the rest of your age group has essentially caught up. However, there is still a massive demand for software engineers, and those with technical talent, you just need to find a way in to the industry given that you essentially "have no past", or serious work history. One option might be to do a FE bootcamp on an ISA. I would also suggest making open source contributions regularly: pick a language and toolchain and start contributing. Might I recommend Haskell or Lisp? (a personal fav) This is all the standard advice, and there is no reason it couldn't work for you if you give it enough time. Also, as a Knuth check holder, don't waste too much time reading Knuth when you aren't applying it to a specific problem, or doing academic research. I work with some non-college degree devs, so It's definitely possible, but you need to be writing a ton of code, and pretty much be all about that. Longer term, I think your mindset/experience/history would be well suited to founding a company, but I'd strongly suggest, getting technical experience for a few years at a company first. Best of luck.