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but those that are working in low level programming often don't know what DNS, FTP or SQL is

That's a very baffling statement that doesn't reflect any of my experiences (I don't think you realize just how big FTP is/was). How are you defining "low-level programmer" here?

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Basically anything that has to do with non-web and non-mobile apps. The app for your nearest ATM machine for example.

Your definition is completely worthless, then. Someone writing Java EE apps is then a "low-level programmer", which is totally wrong.

In fact, ATMs these days more often than not have full operating systems like Windows CE with the software being a Java app that communicates over some standardized XML-based middleware to access ATM system and transaction mechanisms.

Not much left for low-level programmers to do then :)

Kernel hacking, drivers, virtualization, FPGAs/ASICs, compilers/linkers/toolchains, bootloaders, firmware, debuggers, databases, shells, process managers, etc. etc.

There's plenty. Generally if you don't have to worry too intimately about VMM semantics, you probably aren't doing low-level.

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