I'm not misunderstanding the argument at all. I work with a bunch of good and great programmers and we don't touch pointers - at all. I would bet that without heading to the internet and re-learning pointers they wouldn't be able to do even a simple linked list with them.

I would think that unless you work in hardware, it might be quite hard to find low-level coding jobs these days. That's because it's unnecessary in most situations. We don't need to push bits around anymore and managing memory by yourself is like starting a fire with flint and tinder. Yes, it can be fun, useful, and interesting, but it is rarely necessary anymore.