I got my first entry level role in tech at 19 in a small city in England and currently have a decent life in the Bay Area at 28. No degree, although I've tried several before remembering I dislike school, and have also taken various certificates in my spare time. Made a good six-figure rate by 26 in the UK, and most importantly I've worked on projects I've found interesting in stacks I've found interesting.
It's definitely possible to do but it's not a quick journey and I think you have to genuinely enjoy programming. As in, if you didn't work in tech, you'd still play with code for fun. Saying this if you do enjoy it I think it's fairly easy to do assuming you take the long slog of a route, focus on experience over salary, and have reasonable expectations at the beginning. Your first job may not be development - it could be IT support, or manual testing, but you start writing code to automate small bits and try move into a developer role after a year or twos experience. FWIW, my first full-time job in 2014 paid 13k GBP (around $16k I think).
It's definitely possible to do but it's not a quick journey and I think you have to genuinely enjoy programming. As in, if you didn't work in tech, you'd still play with code for fun. Saying this if you do enjoy it I think it's fairly easy to do assuming you take the long slog of a route, focus on experience over salary, and have reasonable expectations at the beginning. Your first job may not be development - it could be IT support, or manual testing, but you start writing code to automate small bits and try move into a developer role after a year or twos experience. FWIW, my first full-time job in 2014 paid 13k GBP (around $16k I think).