Not to discourage you, but I've also observed the same pattern of autodidacts being better than traditional engineers... at least for those who stay in tech. I

Not to discourage you, but I've also observed the same pattern of autodidacts being better than traditional engineers... at least for those who stay in tech. I've seen a lot of self-taught developers or bootcamp grads switch industry or try to move to "tech-adjacent" roles. Making it as an individual contributor is, in my experience, pretty rare.