I know how that "I wouldn't have hired you" thing feels. I didn't go to college for software dev, but am now working at my second job. When I got hired at the first, eventually a conversation came up that was supposed to be light-hearted with all the employees at a lunch (small startup), and the CEO (who is the one who had interviewed me) said "when you got to work coding, you seemed very experienced. But had I known you were only __ years old, I wouldn't have hired you."

Not sure if it was meant to be a good job, or a "you're lucky."