[bsimpson]

Same. Self taught as a child (like OP). Offered a job at a FAANG twice, and took it the second time.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

YMMV. I self taught as a child as well and gave up trying to crack FAANG. I still enjoy my less blingy current role.

[bsimpson]

One nice thing about megacorps is that they're big enough to support specialization.

UX Engineering it a good fit for my skillset (and might be for other self taught people too).

[tomcam]

I actually started learning programming at 21. That was in the early 80s ;)

Thought it might be too late. As a magazine writer I had interviewed Chris Espinosa of Apple, their first documentation person. He started his employment at Apple when he was 14 years old.