Yo i sympathise OP! I think most people in this thread are being dicks. The job market is ruthless at the moment. Interviewing when you don't have a perfectly linear story is the worst. I typically have to go:
"yup, i'm a college dropout, i had a 2 year span were i was pretty depressed and did next to nothing, then i worked at a gas station for a while in my early twenties etc etc"
It's difficult to convince anybody that you are an amazing hire after having admitted to a history of professional failure. I think it was just dumbluck I found my current job. My approach was to be fully honest and transparent, admit to being a bit of a fuckup, but i tried to frame it like it's actually a good thing, because im driven by those failures. I found when I tried to hide the interview typically went worse.
I think it sounds like you are an ace engineer, working for IBM at 18 and supplying patches to GNU projects. Thats amazing. You're probably a better engineer than most people in this thread calling you socially inept or gatekeeping the SWE roles. The job market is ruthless, so your frustration is completely justified. Here hoping you'll manage to turn your situation around!
I think it sounds like you are an ace engineer, working for IBM at 18 and supplying patches to GNU projects. Thats amazing. You're probably a better engineer than most people in this thread calling you socially inept or gatekeeping the SWE roles. The job market is ruthless, so your frustration is completely justified. Here hoping you'll manage to turn your situation around!