I wouldn’t mind doing UI work for these companies but would eventually like to move away from that kind of work entirely. Do I need to go back to school to do this? It doesn’t seem like me doing some personal projects to talk about is going to make the difference here.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Building robots etc. is as simple as building robots etc.. Jobs building robots etc. have vague requirements and involve moderate degrees of luck. Going to school, might make a difference. It might not. Jobs are out of your control. They have external dependencies.
There's also the plain fact that many building robots etc. jobs are military related. Not saying that's good or bad for you, only that it's worthy of awareness whatever your relationship to that fact is.
And a lot of building robotics etc. jobs are in China. Likewise worth awareness whatever your relationship to that fact is.
Good luck.