CS Non-Traditional Student -> Masters

Hello Folks, To begin this post, I want to communicate that I have a strong will to learn and that I value education. I am seeking advice from those with experience entering a Masters in CS as a non-t

Hello Folks, To begin this post, I want to communicate that I have a strong will to learn and that I value education. I am seeking advice from those with experience entering a Masters in CS as a non-traditional student. For context, I spent my first two years out of undergrad in SaaS sales -> Moved into ERP Consulting for 2 years and got very involved with data in a large-scale project so much so that I began developing ETL pipelines and was basically an ETL Dev. Come today, the last 7 months of my life have been learning and absorbing to bridge the gap. I have a strong functional foundation, but have been moving into technical. Since October, I have - Completed a Fullstack Bootcamp (Sponsored by work), obtained AWS SAA-CO3 and accepted a role to begin as an in-house Product-Focused Data Engineer and help them architect their AWS Systems. I am getting older (not to old)and have a girlfriend who is in medical school. I want to get my master's knocked out so I do not have to worry about it later in life. The objective is to enroll and shoot high for traditional CS programs as a non-traditional student. I am committed to briding the gap because this work brings me joy. I am solely seeking advice or others' experience on areas to focus my learning for applying. As a recap: 1. I am a non-traditional CS student wanting to attend a traditional CS Program 2. My undergrad GPA was low (2.9)... I was not taking school seriously; this has changed. 3. I am looking to apply by Fall of 2026 and enroll by Fall of 2027 or earlier 4. I have a strong list of references from managers, architects, project managers, etc who would vouch for me. Any advice is appreciated. I am also happy to list any further context and answer questions :) want this to be a give and take.