Hey, I've worked in one of the contact centers for a long time. There aren't many prospects, only a few places to move and a few levels. The pay is decent for the area, but my options are pretty limited and there's no way I'll be able to retire early. What skills should I try to acquire to make me valuable to an engineering or Cupertino based group? Are there any "soft target" teams that are easy to join? Should I try to go back to school and get a specific CS degree? I've only got an AA now. Should I skip that and just learn a specific type of coding? Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.
You're going to need the equivalent of the programming skills you could acquire in a 4 year CS degree. You don't have to go to school to get them, but doing so does give you a structured way of going about it.
A coworker friend of mine taught herself ios over a few months (she wasn't CS before) and worked at a startup as an ios engineer for less than a year before she was able to get hired at Apple as ios. From what I've heard, for Apple, you need to have the skills they want and more importantly, passion for the company and product (she's an apple fan through and through) to get hired. If she can do it without a background in cs in 1.5 years, you can too.
Move within the company! That will make it easier.
Note that many software engineers start fiddling with computers and programming in their early teens. — Along with a degree equivalent, you will need great focus, demonstrable aptitude, and a lot of uninterrupted time. — you can always join a coding bootcamp; graduate, and start finding some work; but boy, that mind shift takes a decent amount of time and compromise — also do not walk alone; find mentors.
Don't go to a boot camp. Invest the money in a CS degree. Several options exist to do them from accredited universities online (Oregon State University)
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The main thing you need is patience and perseverance because learning how to code is slow and frustrating and not many people I know who wanted to pick it up later in life stuck with it long enough to be proficient. Start by doing some YouTube Python intro/tutorial lessons and see what you think. Then consider doing an Udacity or Coursera or Codeacademy course. Pick a language and try to get proficient in a single language first