This mirrors my experience even beyond the hobby stage. I was quite a bit luckier because I had access to the internet and various dev boards as a kid and could work with them as a low level programmer but trying to move into schematic and PCB design was downright impossible. I couldn't wrap my head around any of the online resources and like you stuck to programming.
Fast forward to my 20s when I could afford to take a short sabbatical to apprentice for a practicing electrical engineer (self-taught as well). Within four months I went from basic breadboarding and soldering skills to designing high speed digital PCBs from start to finish and began contracting as an EE immediately. There was a little math but mostly just a bunch of specialized calculators for impedance matching high speed traces, capacitance, and length matching high speed buses.
I went back to software for the pay but when I designed a small control board last year, the whole exercise from inception to sending off to fab and assembly took four days for an 8 layer PCB. Between all the online parts databases (with footprints and schematic components!), reference and open source designs, and software like Altium and TopoR, electrical engineering has never been easier and involved so little actual theory taught in schools.
It hurts my heart that I haven't yet found a resource that just dumps people into the deep end with a proper focus on the engineering instead of the theory.
Fast forward to my 20s when I could afford to take a short sabbatical to apprentice for a practicing electrical engineer (self-taught as well). Within four months I went from basic breadboarding and soldering skills to designing high speed digital PCBs from start to finish and began contracting as an EE immediately. There was a little math but mostly just a bunch of specialized calculators for impedance matching high speed traces, capacitance, and length matching high speed buses.
I went back to software for the pay but when I designed a small control board last year, the whole exercise from inception to sending off to fab and assembly took four days for an 8 layer PCB. Between all the online parts databases (with footprints and schematic components!), reference and open source designs, and software like Altium and TopoR, electrical engineering has never been easier and involved so little actual theory taught in schools.
It hurts my heart that I haven't yet found a resource that just dumps people into the deep end with a proper focus on the engineering instead of the theory.