Genuinely curious, I don't mean to be insulting, and a hiring manager will be asking the same question: you've been playing with tech for a long time and sound like you're interested enough to be competent. How is it that your work experience is generic, unskilled jobs? I realize it's a poor region, but it's still the US (no visa issues), remote wasn't unheard of pre-covid, and even poor regions often have something halfway resembling a a DBA or sysadmin within an hour radius.