> I would wager you are not the norm among the exclusively self-taught crowd
What is the norm?
> the self-taught people I interview
That's another small and unrepresentative group, possibly much smaller than self-taught developers who visit HN. In total, how many self-taught people have you interviewed? Either way, there's selection bias.
> a few self-taught people that are going to stand out, but they are the visible part of the iceberg, and if you advise someone to go self-taught, most likely they'll end up underperforming compared to someone who's gone to university.
That's kind of the point, though. Who would advise someone to go self-taught? That would be strange advice. There's definitely survivorship bias in self-taught engineers who have managed to make it in the tech industry, which is exactly why you should pay attention to them: they've successfully overcome the odds and obstacles. The % of self-taught who get to that point is likely much smaller than the % of university-taught. As you say, "being self-taught is harder."
What is the norm?
> the self-taught people I interview
That's another small and unrepresentative group, possibly much smaller than self-taught developers who visit HN. In total, how many self-taught people have you interviewed? Either way, there's selection bias.
> a few self-taught people that are going to stand out, but they are the visible part of the iceberg, and if you advise someone to go self-taught, most likely they'll end up underperforming compared to someone who's gone to university.
That's kind of the point, though. Who would advise someone to go self-taught? That would be strange advice. There's definitely survivorship bias in self-taught engineers who have managed to make it in the tech industry, which is exactly why you should pay attention to them: they've successfully overcome the odds and obstacles. The % of self-taught who get to that point is likely much smaller than the % of university-taught. As you say, "being self-taught is harder."