You might just be reading more articles or seeing more independent projects from young people, because those young people are less likely to work a full-time jo

You might just be reading more articles or seeing more independent projects from young people, because those young people are less likely to work a full-time job (or if they do, they're not doing 12-16 hours a day in addition to open-source and articles). Plenty of people in their 30s (or even, gasp, their 40s) are still productive, high-earning professionals in the software world. I started out quite young myself, writing software for gameboy advance at 15, and I did plenty of public-facing work: articles, coding competitions, etc. After uni I joined a big corporation, and while I was learning plenty and doing a lot of very influential work, there was much less personal credit for what I was doing. While this is less related to age, don't be too impressed by how you see the work of others represented. I've seen plenty of fancy videos (and TED talks) for people who just had vapour. You're always going to view yourself with all your perceived shortcomings, but you'll see others as the public persona they have meticulously crafted.