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

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

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).

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.

Same. I still have zero certifications of any kind beyond HS, despite the pressure to start collecting the useless company certs.

When? I also have a successful career despite not having any degree, but my read is that it's not as easy for newbies as it was 10 years ago.

It's anecdotal based on my social circle and their younger friends, but I'm wary of turning into my parents with advice like "you don't need a degree, just a firm handshake and an affinity for hard leetcode problems!"

Well hang on. You say "newbies". I made sure I had been doing hard stuff for a few years before I joined the FAANG company, but yes, it was in the late 1990s. At that time it was harder to get in with no degree. I made it my job from the very beginning of my career to choose areas that were hard for most programmers and to keep up my skills.

What is "hard for most programmers" exactly?

Back when I did it, assembly, embedded programming, and compiler implementation were all subjects programmers avoided in college so I went in that direction.