I started at age 39 though and did pretty well up until a year or two ago (16 years total).

Like many people I've been sad about the loss of a career I spent years developing skills in and I'm 55 now and won't be quickly retraining for another high paying career. Fortunately I do have other skills I developed earlier in life and low needs so will probably limp by fine but it's still a painful adjustment.

Point being, you could always write code as an older person. Well, back in the old days when we wrote code anyway.