Unfortunately, unless you are lucky and have the connections and required social skills (e.g. you live in a place where engineers are respected and you know peo

Unfortunately, unless you are lucky and have the connections and required social skills (e.g. you live in a place where engineers are respected and you know people who are not age-biased and to whom you can argument your value), the chances of finding well-paid work as a teenager are slim. For self-taught programmers, before you find work with good pay, there seems to be a phase of self-validation. In a way, you have to pave your road somehow to demonstrate your value. For me, this meant freelancing for individuals and small businesses to gain work to which to refer to when later interviewing. I had done five of these gigs before landing a job opportunity which paid going rates for university graduates. Before that, I had worked three years and made the equivalent of two-month salary in my new job. I had been underpaid. My boss even implied that I had been a bargain, but working for under the minimum wage besides studies was what it required to me to gain some experience. After the aforementioned job experience, I turned my twenties and at the same time the "age discrimination" I had experienced before turned upside-down. To me, this seemed like I had reached the point of self-validation, after which I was seen as an equivalent of a university graduate. So, if possible, do not give up because of the low pay as long as you are able to learn. In my opinion, investing in yourself when you are still young is one of the best investments one can do. In a way, people here talk about product-market fit. To me, it seems like you as a freelancer have been able to a figure that out already by finding businesses which have ordered applications from you. I think that if you are able to continue whatever you are doing now and also learn new (to increase your social capital), have some fun (to avoid burnout) and to make some money (for ramen profitability or to justify your family that you are doing something of value on the computer) then you will eventually land the job opportunity by "chance" (recruiters) or then you are able to justify your skills once you apply to a job which interests you.