I’m also in the embedded space and I totally agree with you. I have 12 years of experience and I’m still getting better and learning new things. I worked with some people with >30 years of experience and they were by far the best and most knowledgeable programmers I’ve ever encountered.

Maybe it’s because embedded programming doesn’t change as often as other areas, such as web frameworks. The experience I have from 12 years ago of reading data sheets, interfacing I2C sensors to a PIC32, and debugging by turning on LEDs is still relevant today, even though I have moved on to much much more complicated projects.