I’m 23. Is it too late to seriously get into programming?

I’ve always been really interested in programming, but I procrastinated a lot during college. I just graduated with an engineering degree, and now I finally want to take programming seriously.

The problem is, I feel like I’m way behind. I see teenagers who are already insanely good at coding, building projects, contributing to open source, and it honestly eats me up inside. I feel like I wasted 4 years of my engineering not focusing on programming when I had the time.

Has anyone else started “late” and caught up? Is 23 actually late, or am I just overthinking this? I’d really appreciate some honest advice.

Posted Feb 15, 2026, 3:21 AM UTC

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