17yo here, started to program when I was 9 in c#, moved to C when I was 13 and then started using NodeJS slightly after it came out. All self taught, it helps a _lot_ if you have a project that you're passionate about that can give you that bit of motivation to keep learning. For the last year I've been bootstrapping my startup (in the infosec field, still stealth mode) and have been recently (~5mos) employed by a small yet global company as one of their main developers so I can earn a bit more money and experience until I can get my own stuff off the ground!