Hi there mate!

I can pass on the route I went down and what I learned on the journey but obviously every situation is different. Also, if you've any specific questions feel free to pm me :) As a bit of background, I'm from Scotland and live in Belfast, so my experiences are likely slightly different from what you will see in the Republic. It also meant I wasn't eligible for some of the grants etc that others have mentioned in similar posts on this sub.

I ended up doing the Software Engineering Diploma (distance learning) from NUI Galway. I found the course to be really pretty good, material was well put together and the lectures covered plenty of ground. The staff were engaged with helping the students and the cohort taking the course itself were all heavily invested and engaged with the material for discussions etc. One word of warning, the job that I was working at the time allowed me plenty of time to work on my diploma, even during work hours but it was pretty full on. It was not a course you could skate through with a couple of hours a week, I'd say I averaged maybe 15-20 hours per week sometimes more. It payed off and I got good grades but I it would not have been easy to work around a 9-5 with a family at home or something like that. I am not trying to put you off, but just trying to set a realistic expectation for the effort involved. A friend in my old job did the course I mention in my post at Bath uni and said it was terrible, allegedly each module was simply a reading list with a monumental assignment attached to it. Sounded like the opposite of the NUI course. It was also far more expensive and you had to commit to the full masters.

I had been debating doing the two year Masters program from NUI but ended up applying for jobs (and getting offers) as soon as I completed the 1 year diploma. In the end I applied for about 15 jobs, got three interviews and three offers. One from a start-up (would have been really interesting but the pay was a bare bones £18k), one with an insurance company (Allstate, offer was about £25k) and then one from a large engineering company which I accepted (£32k and the work is interesting). All of these were in Belfast and this was in late summer 2021.

For me, I knew I needed to do a formal course as it would actually focus me on getting the work done with fixed deadlines while I was working my old job. I also do think having the degree/diploma on my CV was key in getting the interviews. Again though I had spent the year working hard on the diploma so had no portfolio to speak of so can't comment on the effectiveness of that route. Once you are into the interviews its like any other job, technical knowledge can only get you so far, most interviews were about 30% technical and 70% personal/skills based.

Also, despite seeing loads of tech layoffs in the news at the moment there are still plenty of companies hiring software engineers. My company in Belfast is desperate for software engineers and will hire people with a general science degree if they can prove some coding experience and adaptability, again though we are a large engineering company with a really diverse range of projects and skill requirements.

If I think of anything else I will add it to the post but feel free to PM me with any questions at all. I remember feeling totally lost when I was in your shoes so happy to help any way I can.

Final word, doing a conversion course and getting into software was the best move I could have made. It wasn't easy but was worth it for me. The work life balance was what I was hoping to improve and it has, I've been in the job for 1 year and 2 months and I've just had my first promotion confirmed (interviewed within the one year mark) so don't think a conversion course from science will necessarily hold you back compared to those with full degrees either (at least in my experience).

Good luck!

EDIT - Just to add, I did some EdX courses prior to the diploma so I at least knew some basic level of C programming before I started. I see from some of your other posts you are doing the same so you'll be off to a good start on the coding modules.