The problem is getting hired. With all the resources available today, learning programming is easy compared to pre-LLM, pre-Stack Overflow, pre-Google days of learning to program. I dare say an autodidact in the original dot com boom, transported to today, would be fine, as far as being useful to a company goes. You don't need to know every frontend framework, all possible backends, and be a Linux god at devops, all at once. Sure there's more stuff today then in the 00's, but no team is using all of all three of those simultaneously, so what you practically have to know isn't too much for a motivated individual to learn.

The problem is getting hired. If seniors are having problems getting callbacks for interviews right now, then a young kid with a thin resume isn't going to get hired, no matter how senior their skills are in reality.