This is what I'm currently doing, and can confirm it helps quite a bit with learning the necessary skills. I did a full-time full-stack development apprenticesh

This is what I'm currently doing, and can confirm it helps quite a bit with learning the necessary skills. I did a full-time full-stack development apprenticeship program alongside it (yes, 80 hours a week of work) for 7 months and came out with tons of knowledge and projects I didn't do before. And now I'm doing a Master's in CS and focusing on courses that are relevant to the career I envision for myself. Is it work immediately? No, I can ignored in most applications. But does it give me the confidence that I eventually will get the regular software engineering job I'm searching for? Yes.