I'm a full-on autodidact. I've never seen a college campus, much less been in class. I should be, by all definition, for this article. I play guitar and program. How good vs others is a matter of opinion.

I hate the short-cut analysis that this response gives. I hate it when people confuse classical training for do-it-yourself learning. There is simply no excuse for not knowing the theory, and sadly many autodidacts feel like dismissing theory is proper justification for self-baked learning, and I'm sorry, this is not true. It's pure laziness, especially in a day and age when so many excellent books are on the cheap, and even MOOCs are available that really drill down and challenge you to rethink your own IQ. Even if I've never actually used DFS or had to build my own hash table, the ideas have been incredibly valuable to know about. These are all components of proper design and thinking.

I'll say it bluntly: You CANNOT play guitar well without learning the underlying theory and you CANNOT program well without learning the theory of what you are doing. Yes, I know people point to famous musician X who knows no theory, but they do know more than absolute zero. They are, more often than not, saying they don't know enough to teach it, but they certainly know it. Even Hendrix knew his scales and proper chord progressions.

Yes, you can sort of BS your way into something resembling knowledge, but the problem is, if you can't use language to describe why something is good or why it works, you are guessing, pure and simple.

How do you find a job as an autodidact? Well, the main problem we all have is that we simply don't know where we are in the pecking order. We sit in interviews and don't really know how to describe why we are better than a college grad (to be honest, we probably aren't).

For autodidacts, it is probably easier to get contracts or build our own businesses.

The language for a contractor is "I'm able to do this and this is what I charge," as opposed to "I'm able to do this better than the other 8 people you are interviewing." Contracting is a much easier sell. If you have a convincing project, then you are good to go, and that's all you really need.

A business is the same language as a contractor: You are able to do this and you are good to go. Post ads, open a paywall, whatever. There is no asking permission to work, just do it.