Many of the algorithms we're implementing (or at least considering) only exist in recently published papers, or sit behind unpublished APIs. There have been huge improvements in graph route-finding algorithms in the last decade, so much of it is new, interesting and it's far from run-of-the-mill implementation.
I'm 38 - I spent the first many years of my career doing CRUD development, first in Perl (late 90's), then Java/PHP (2000's). I skipped the JS craze, and now I'm enjoying my work more than ever improving my C++ skills (last time I touched C++ was 98, modern C++14 is a huge improvement) and working on backend, specialized algorithm implementation. It's great!
Experience is the best teacher. Kids don't listen to their parents, new developers don't listen to the greybeards until it's too late. This is the way things are :-)