Thanks for this! I could self teach and my work in the public sector would let me go on 1 year of unpaid leave to try out a software dev job.

In some sense though, just on a psychological level, I feel like I'd still have lingering doubts. That I'm just an amateur hacking away etc., and that my resume will just get screened out without a CS degree. How did you deal with that, if you experienced it? And would you mind giving a few details of what it is you do now? Thanks again for the encouraging comment.