Agree on taking financial accounting at a community college or a university. Accounting is a way of thinking and I can't imagine learning it on my own.
Finance on the other hand is a bunch of mathematical formulas that are usually dumbed down. With OP being technical they should be able to learn the finance stuff on their own.
I'd venture to say with a solid understand of financial accounting they can probably learn financial statement analysis on their own too. I really like this book: https://www.amazon.com/Financial-Statement-Analysis-Practiti...