What if you make your core competence as a programmer "gaining steady footing in new tech", along with basic like code structuring, version control and some automation (CI/testing etc.)?
That way you might not become "the greatest X86 assembly programmer" or whatever niche you like, but you might become a very proficient system integrator, which is useful in its own right.
That way you might not become "the greatest X86 assembly programmer" or whatever niche you like, but you might become a very proficient system integrator, which is useful in its own right.