I think it is beyond obvious I have not sat idle after having to drop out of engineering school in my mid 20's. The above isn't a list of things I touched superficially. Each of the above skills represents (and came from) having to learn in order to perform at different jobs or for specific projects. Starting and running my own tech company forced me to learn even more. It was self-funded, which means I had to do it all for a long time.
...so, why is it that I can count interviews from job applications in the last, say, ten years, with two hands?
About seven or eight years ago a recruiter opened-up to me when he sensed my frustration. What he told me rattled me to some extent. He said nobody would hire me and suggested entrepreneurship was my only path. The way he put it was:
"The owner/CEO of a small to medium company won't hire you because, given your experience, they will be afraid you will learn their industry and become a competitor. The manager at a medium to large company won't hire you because they will be afraid you'll take their job."
That has been in the back of my mind for years now. At the same time, I hear so many stories from people who send out hundreds of resume's and never get so much as a smoke signal back. While I do wonder "What's wrong with me?", I also ask myself whether the problem really centers about hiring practices today. You'd think many companies would jump at the opportunity to have someone like me contribute to their mission. Yet, nothing...
And there's the question of age discrimination, which is a real thing in tech.