Where do I go from here: from a (perpetual)learner to a practitioner

At 40, I decided to take programming classes after stumbling across a question in quora that mentioned Python (it was the first time I heard about it as a programming language). During my studies, I got very interested in NLP: So I read about it (NLTK). But the more I read, the more I realized I needed to cover other fields as well, in particular: statistics/probability, calculus, linear algebra. The more I learn about NLP/ML/DL, the more I find new interesting things to learn. At times, I feel lost and get discouraged, fearing that I won't have the time and energy to get into the NLP field.

Should I just stop and look for a job in NLP and learn on the job? Is there any chance I get a junior position? Any insights, pieces of advice from people with similar experiences?

As a side note: my background is in linguistics and I started programming 4 years ago. I currently work as a front-end JS developer. Thank you all!