My skill is not marketing my skills on a freelance basis. My skill is in engineering.. and a variety of others (like startups, people management, etc.)
I hate 80/20 like splits that are so binary.
Part of the problem here is that it's very difficult for many people under 30 to imagine someone over 40 is not falling into your %75 category. They already think that most people can't do fizz buzz.
I once had an interview with a 20 year old with 2 years of experience. HE was the head of development at one of those startups that raised millions on kickstarter.
He asked me the question: "How would you do feature X in language Y?". I pointed out that you couldn't do it in language Y but that you could do these other things that were similar. He then said " In language Z you do this and that's the answer I was looking for". But language Z is not the same as language Y.
Flubbing a question? No problem. Everyone can get nervous. Giving a BS question and then using the "wrong" answer as a reason to not hire me? Suspicious. So, why would he try to do that? Well, it turns out we were on a video call.
Who wants to hire someone old enough to be their dad? I understand that sentiment.
But the Software Industry hasn't developed a pyramid of job titles you can climb.