Im also a mere mortal, and after putting a few years into it IMO I’d say people make it much more complicated than it actually is. I failed most of my math courses for lack of interest, but found passion later with the aforementioned SLAM stuff. I have no doubt you or any other programmer could learn this stuff, especially since you can ask ChatGPT clarifying questions.

I have no idea about careers at this point, I’m still doing fancy IT work as my day job I and look away from the future with dread. I also haven’t been looking for new roles on the open job market, so who knows maybe there’s multimillion pay packages for anyone who can articulate how attention works in an interview.