Weirdly, I think it all got me my first job. I interviewed at a graphics card manufacturer and the interviewer placed one of their cards on the table and said “tell me what’s on that card”.
I picked it up and pointed out all the components because I knew them all by their part numbers that were written on them. I hadn’t seen them before, but I knew they were options in XFree86. Then add in that the regular array of chips was likely VRAM and the chips with the same logo on them as was above the door where the companies own video processors.
I didn’t know how any of it worked, but he didn’t know that. All he saw was a fresh graduate that just effortlessly identified some quite esoteric components of a design he’d personally made.