One thing that has helped me relax is that my partner has a career that is very different than mine and we are a dual-income household. We have, for the most pa

One thing that has helped me relax is that my partner has a career that is very different than mine and we are a dual-income household. We have, for the most part, lived a life that can be supported on just one of our incomes. Our mortgage gets paid and we all eat on one of our household salaries. We are mostly frugal but not miserly. We have savings and investments that would help cushion income loss. Academic credentials have been helpful to me - I have a MS in CS. Your profile indicates you are mechanical engineer by training. It may be worth considering if a part-time or online MS in CS is worthwhile. Especially consider this if your company offers an educational support benefit - a MS or MBA on the company's dime is attractive. I have a vague feeling the extra credentials matter much less for FAANG or software companies than working in healthcare or finance as a software engineer. Meaningful efforts are worthwhile, even if it has to be personal projects, where you can say "I actually did this and the effect was <insert something cool>." My current organization always gets a large number of "aspirational" engineer applicants when we have openings. These types of folks can be summarized as having lite IT backgrounds. Maybe they have a little training in programming but are now mostly spreadsheet jockeys or have been doing desktop support. Or they are career-switchers who did a short javascript bootcamp and have held a number of entry-level jobs but don't seem to have actually programmed much. Don't be one of these, no matter what it takes.