Seriously, I dropped out of college and worked my way back up to the position of 'lead developer' and it took me a couple of interview rounds, when we tried to fill open positions, to realise that there are so many clueless programmers on the market. Before that, I thought this was mainly limited to the companies I knew. So, if you have experience and browse HN, chances are that you are already in the top 10%. Of course this is an oversimplification and based on anectodal evidence. By the way, I was of course desperate after I dropped out and thus was lucky just finding a job.