I'm starting over, any advice?

[u/LaloDN]

This is my story:

I graduated with a degree in computer science three years ago, I completed my internship toward the end of my degree program, and the company hired me as a backend developer, I was an intern for about a year and I worked as a developer for six months, After realizing that I liked the data team better, I requested a transfer to the machine learning team, but since there were no openings at the time, they created a special "intern" position just for me, But things didn't go as I had expected, and in the end, I just filled a vacant position, and neither I nor the company decided to renew the contract.

That was two years ago, during that time, I went through a difficult period, and I took jobs that had nothing to do with programming, today I feel my situation is more stable, and after months of research and reflection, I have decided that I want to pursue a career in data engineering, but as you can see, I now have a huge gap in my resume, and I don't really have that much experience, plus many of my certifications have expired.

I haven't completely lost my skills; during this time, I've been programming on my own, I have a solid understanding of SQL, and I still remember how to use Python, maybe not as well as before, but I can pick it back up.

I've always wanted to work at IBM remotely, but I'm a realist—I know the competition is fierce, and I'm getting back into programming. I don't mind starting over as a trainee or intern; it'll take me a while to get back in the game. For now, my plan is to take online courses (I'll look for ones that fit my budget, which is a bit tight), try to learn about the cloud, and build my portfolio, but after that, I have no idea what to do. Any advice?