I was in a similar situation as you and had the same thought about applying for internships. I had a non-CS background, was a couple years out of school, doing

I was in a similar situation as you and had the same thought about applying for internships. I had a non-CS background, was a couple years out of school, doing work that barely qualified as software development in a mediocre environment. I felt stuck and was jealous of friends still in school who seemingly breezed into Facebook and Google internships (etc.) which I wasn't even allowed to apply for. Meanwhile, trying to apply full-time to any top companies would result in automated rejection. There is a well-oiled machine for scooping up thousands of talented CS students and funneling them into positions at top companies, but if you are on a slightly different path it is easy to be overlooked by the recruiting machine. What eventually worked for me was continuously trying to get into companies that were better than where I was, while working hard enough that I learned lots and impressed the people I worked with. It didn't take as many steps as I thought it would to get to Google/Facebook level, and overall it was faster and probably more interesting than going back for a CS degree.