This resonates deeply. I'm 49 and spent the last 18 months building six web apps with Claude while working a full-time Director role. The experience is exactly what you describe - that feeling of staying up late not because you have to, but because you can't stop.

What changed for me was the feedback loop. Before AI tooling, I'd have an idea, realize it would take weeks to prototype, and let it die. Now I go from concept to working MVP in a weekend. The constraint shifted from "can I build this" to "should I build this" - which is a much better problem to have.

The stack that works for me: Lovable for frontend, Replit for backend, Claude API for the AI layer, Neon for Postgres. Not fancy, but it ships.

The biggest lesson: AI doesn't replace the need for experience and taste. It amplifies it. Your decades of context about what makes good software - that's the real asset. Claude is just fast hands.