"Those of us whose education pre-dates computer science as a supposedly-serious degree subject[1] started with all sorts of gaps in our knowledge."
What only became obvious in hindsight was that we were still pioneers. When we were given a task to do - it was often the case that no one else in our IT company had done that before. You had to have an enquiring mind, tenacity, and a capacity for lateral thinking.
My teenage hobby of amateur radio and electronics gave me a good grounding for working in the IT industry. My intended career had been in those fields - but serendipity put me into O/S support programming and technical system trouble-shooting.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
