This feels like a broad generalization. While some autistic people may lean toward bottom-up thinking, it's not universal, and plenty of neurotypicals excel at it too. The analogy with blind people and hearing doesn't really work either, since autistic engineers aren’t compensating for anything in the same way. Processing styles are much more complex than neurotype labels.

FWIW I am on the spectrum and am working on precision psychiatry with autistic individuals for my graduate thesis. I don't buy a lot of the stereotypes often peddled about spergy software guys. I find a lot of these people to be quite problematic as coworkers, regardless of how talented they may be.