We also hired a guy who made simpler Javascript games, but his code looked great an he understood how it all worked.
One is still here, and isn't very useful, the other left for greener pastures as management wanted him to work on only the boring stuff.
C-level companies will prefer B-level players
Also don't hire programmers who demonstrated that they don't care about the fun stuff unless you have no other options.
This is why I feel like I'm a bad programmer and no longer look for work in that capacity. I enjoy the edge cases and challenging problems, but I am almost incapable of creating CRUD apis and user interfaces at this point. I'm amazing in a hackathon, but contribute poorly to regular sprint style work. I can pick up and integrate new technology extremely quickly and can refactor a spaghettified mess of code into something maintainable, but I am completely miserable doing maintenance level work after things are smoothed out.
> I am completely miserable doing maintenance level work
Sounds like something you might want to work on even if you don't get a job in programming. It seems unlikely you'll find any line of work where everything you do every day is new and exciting.
Programming-wise it isn't as hard to find as you might think. Maybe not working FAAMG or similar, but it's quite doable. If you don't compromise on the desire to work only on interesting* stuff when a big paycheck comes along, you'll eventually end up in a position where you only work on interesting stuff. The gamut of work is wide.
To be honest such work isn't even that rare. Most people would rather make $200k and complain about how boring their job is than have an interesting one. I think for many people "interesting work" is often the same as "stressful work" and so the interesting positions are not as easily filled.
[*] Interesting as defined by me, and probably the parent poster as well. Obviously this is subjective.