Service can put you into this kind of technical work with the training paid for, and the security clearance that sometimes comes with it is worth money on its own afterwards. The GI Bill then covers school on top. It is a serious commitment and it is a genuine route; both things are true.
For this occupation specifically
2,254,000 people do this work. 20.3% are women and 6.1% are Hispanic, so roughly 27,911 are Latina. BLS describes the usual way in as apprenticeship, bootcamp, CS associate degree, self-taught with portfolio.
Sources. Employment totals and the share of each
occupation that is women and that is Hispanic: US Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Current Population Survey annual
averages, reproduced as published. The Latina share is an estimate: BLS publishes the two shares
separately and not their intersection, so the two are multiplied and labelled as such everywhere it
appears. County economic type: USDA Economic Research Service County Typology Codes; labour markets:
2020 Commuting Zones. Funded training routes: WIOA through local workforce boards, registered
apprenticeships via apprenticeship.gov, and federal student aid via studentaid.gov. We publish the
source so the arithmetic can be checked rather than trusted.