He was technically smart, but not necessarily a technical genius. He had a general sense of what was possible, what it would cost, and what needed more R&D.

It is possible to make the experience + youth math add up:

"I was doing Java as a fetus, and built a server farm as a sperm."

I explained that what I had listed includes "configuration", but he refused to send the customer my resume until I added "configured" to the sentence.

The work world is all about posturing, the superficial, and "managing" the opinions of the technically-clueless. It won't stop after you are hired. Welcome to the Real World.

Specs? You get specs? We have to build our apps on heresy, lucky dog. "Specs are for wimps" says the PHB.

My observation over the years is that companies don't understand how specialized their requests really are in practice. They want somebody who knows X and Y and Z etc. However, there will only be very few actual humans who fit that bill.

I don't think they understand how such "and" combinations reduce the potential pool of matches significantly. It's not about lack of IT workers in general. They just don't grasp the probabilities of it all. It's almost as if they see "and" no different than "or".

Perhaps they needs to see it happen on a spreadsheet of sample applicants or something to appreciate the narrowing power of AND.

The work around for such narrow filters is to be more flexible, such as be willing to train or wait for a learning curve. Companies want instant plug-and-play employees, but that's just not possible when matching combinations of skills.