Here is another simple tip to improve your ability to recognize algorithms: Just look at the software you use every day and ask yourself how does it work.
When you make a click on your web browser, how does the browser know what element you clicked?
When you tell you StarCraft unit to move to a given point, how does the game engine know what path it should follow.
Are you using a Redis cache with an LRU eviction policy, how does that work? Why it's so fast? (hint: it's not only because it's written in C)
You know that adding indexes to your database columns makes them faster. Why? How does that work? What are the tradeoffs of the the different kinds of indexes.
When you type `ls -R` in the console, what's happening?
How is it that Google can give us the results of searching on trillions of webpages in just a fraction of a second?
It's sad to see a general sentiment here on HN against algorithms and data structures. In reality, most of the tools we use everyday use all those algorithms and data structures.
If you feel that you don't need to know about algorithms and data structures, you probably do very mechanic and simple things like CRUD software. The moment you do something slightly more difficult or at a bigger scale, you are going to need this knowledge. You simply can't be a good developer without understanding these concepts (I'm not saying that it's the only thing you need).