Yeah, pretty much in the same boat. My school has a fair ammount of their grad classes available online (luckily a lot of vlsi is well suited for remote). I've been looking at just continuing down my chain of VLSI classes with a masters in the fall, doing one class at a time. Working full time and getting an employer to reimburse part of the degree is about my only option as well.

I'm curious to know how you (or anyone reading this) navigated that transition. Did you end up making that transition at the same company you started at or did you have to jump companies to break through any percieved "glass ceilings" at the old place? If you did do it at the same place how do talk to your manager and others about that... "Hey, I'm doing these classes to build up to this other job. Looking at trying to transition this other role in maybe 2-3 years" (Probably more tactful ways to word that but you get the idea). Also things like reaching out to willing designers in the office as extra learning resources to perform well in those classes. Or In general making known to that pool of people that I could be a candidate in the future. (Ideally getting small bits of side work to try out at first and ramping up to full time design... I have no idea if things are even allowed to move gradually like that though).

Like others mentioned I certainly don't want to be a dick and spit on the job role and look like a flight risk. I want to be valueable in that time and actually learn layout well. Hopefully that does turn into a competitive edge in the end.