I've been hesitant to anchor on a neuroatypical identity in the work place. I suspect people carry biases that would hurt me more than any benefits from special programs. I have pushed to accommodate my unique wiring when negotiating working conditions, and that has gone ok. In hindsight - before I understood my higher sensitivity to stimulus and poor ability to navigate social cues, I pursued a lot of unnecessarily stressful work situations. I was able to fall back on my analytical strengths to get through them, but I suffered for it.
You have great points on the difficulty of self-diagnosing and being blind to the unknown unknowns. One consistent message I found, is that if you've met one person with autism, you know one person with autism. The traits that express, and coping strategies that will be most effective, are unique to the individual. I can see a good professional being very helpful there. My own imperfect model of the world includes a dislike for bringing new people into my life, so I haven't pursued it.
My wife and I have worked out a stable set of accommodations over the 20 years we've known each other. She definitely has to make trade offs on the social side. I encourage her to do things with friends that don't involve me. Sometimes I also go do things with her, where we are both perfectly clear - I am not going to enjoy it. The only intent of me going is to make her happy and I focus on it. Ironically, being tasked like that can make overwhelming environments more palatable.
I also need her to be much more blunt in communication than most people will tolerate. Just tell me how it is, if my feelings appear I'll ignore them, and we can act on full information. Otherwise there's a good chance I'll ignore the message. It's become comfortable for us, but does sometimes bleed into her other relationships with negative consequences. Immediate and direct feedback is not welcomed by everyone.
For me personally, empathy doesn't work very well. With time, I intellectually understand where it should be triggered and can exhibit roughly correct responses, but it's really tough to truthfully feel it. That's especially true during face to face interaction. We've been together long enough that she knows this feature is broken and accepts it. She doesn't always enjoy it, but I don't have to pretend.
We also have worked out scripts for the interactions that are emotionally important to her, that I might not automatically demonstrate. The fact that I take the time to learn and provide them shows I care, even if the wiring isn't there.
Anyway, if you might be wired different, I do think there's a lot of benefit to exploring it. This is a video about it in the software development that I enjoyed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrQeAwe4_xw