[ellius]

Case in point: I'm self taught and have a junior manager job in software engineering. I had a lot of good resources and got some guidance, but I never went to a boot camp or had a dedicated mentor. It was just a lot of "learn something, apply it as much as I can to the job I have, keep learning, keep trying to understand the big picture." Eventually I developed enough knowledge to get hired as a programmer and moved up from there.

[softawre]

Good job. I think determination and willpower like you have is fairly rare, at least where I'm from (Midwest US).