I refuse to believe it is truly a young man's / woman's game; but I do observe a marked change in perspective over the years.
One may argue that I was never a high-volume person - e.g. I tend to follow a few ideas with some tenacity; hoping those ideas pan out.
There is also target-specificity: maximizing my own learning means different targets, this implies paying ramp-up costs w/o maximizing payout in bugs.
@HalvarFlake in larger organizations and agencies, people and teams specialize. I'm sure you see it in your corporate experiences.
I remember bursting into laughter walking through the halls of NSA when I heard: "specialization... it's not just for insects!". Very true!
More specialization and focus is needed to eek out the remaining wins in a well picked over field. What I don't see, and I think of you as a kindred soul here, are lots of folks really looking for new *applied* green fields. :)
@Mudge :-)
Related, if a bit dark: listen to https://g.co/kgs/yQF3jX - Wax Taylor / Charlotte Savary "Greenfields"
The sad song of the old hacker.
HalvarFlake
Mudge