> The problem is CS degrees. What do you learn in a CS degree? First you learn data structures, then you learn algorithms, then maybe if there's time they burst your bubble and tell you about caches and how CPUs actually work.

There's 4 years in a standard CS degree program, there's time unless your curriculum or choice of focus is more strictly on the theoretical side, which is not typical outside of a few universities (as the only or primary option). Every second tier university graduate I've mentored has understood these topics. Except for the past 5 years where they are, more consistently, only capable of programming in Python or similar high level language and their program of study has divorced itself of talking about the real-world behavior on real hardware (from the same schools that, previously, seemed to understand or at least be aware of these topics).