Dude, most developers who come from Uni are also totally clueless. They have to spend a week getting started with Rails/Django and three months getting fast at throwing together mediocre software using their framework de jour.
You've been coding since you were a teenager - and I assume that you understand the stack from bottom up?
Are your age, ability and willingness to learn + attitude is, in almost all cases, is the important factor. That's why a lot of graduates fail (or spend 5 years making the same little websites then move to management). They never had the interest to learn in the first place.
Get a job, find your limit, and surpass it. Do things that force you to learn something - they'll seem impossible at first, but you' d be surprised how fast you develop. The resources are so insanely good nowadays, you can literally follow a top class CS bachelors at home.
I'm almost twice your age, I didn't go to uni - I didn't need to, I have no trouble learning. I've remained as close to the code as I can, and have always been in the top couple of % of my profession. The only thing that really holds you back is having kids - you can't throw weekends into doing geeky things and 5-10 years of chronic lack of sleep is a killer.
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Dude, most developers who come from Uni are also totally clueless. They have to spend a week getting started with Rails/Django and three months getting fast at throwing together mediocre software using their framework de jour.
You've been coding since you were a teenager - and I assume that you understand the stack from bottom up?
Are your age, ability and willingness to learn + attitude is, in almost all cases, is the important factor. That's why a lot of graduates fail (or spend 5 years making the same little websites then move to management). They never had the interest to learn in the first place.
Get a job, find your limit, and surpass it. Do things that force you to learn something - they'll seem impossible at first, but you' d be surprised how fast you develop. The resources are so insanely good nowadays, you can literally follow a top class CS bachelors at home.
I'm almost twice your age, I didn't go to uni - I didn't need to, I have no trouble learning. I've remained as close to the code as I can, and have always been in the top couple of % of my profession. The only thing that really holds you back is having kids - you can't throw weekends into doing geeky things and 5-10 years of chronic lack of sleep is a killer.