>>12243130>to throw away my career as a software devThe good and bad thing about software is that it will always welcome you back. If you're qualified, people will believe your work to be more valuable than your title. On the flip side, this means barrier to entry is low, so mouth breathers end up tainting the name of the field. However, you can count on the anti-credentialism to work in your favor as a fallback.
>undo years of my life, that's what's holding me backThat's fair, it's a tough decision.
>i currently lack the background needed. All research at some point amounts of self study and pacing yourself. It comes down to discipline and collecting resources.
>caught up on the basics of parallel and gpu computingthis is way better than nothing
> am progressing very slowly, really only getting meaningful work done on the weekends.this is more than fine - conserve your energy and go through with the mind to make meaningful progress, not large amounts, at a time. Reading and then implementing, then taking a break, will help you get into a good groove for it.
>don't really have much opportunity for exposure to the world of scientific computingSee if there are open source projects you can help. Otherwise, see if there are collaborators with your company or local university / labs that could use someone who wants to learn. Scientific computing is a very large, storied subject with lots of books and active literature.
>i'm not really sure how to get there besides whoring out side projects and then implementing random shit in open source projects or watching itNetworking is important. Do you know anybody in the field, in industry? What about academically? You could probably use LinkedIn or talk to people at local labs about opportunities to break into the field. Of course you would have to do some work, but the career transition isn't as bad as you might think.
