specific, clear idea of what skills I might need to have, refine, etc,

Make stuff. Keep making stuff. Publish your source code, even the shitty stuff. Maybe especially the shitty stuff, since that tends to be more interesting. Be ready to talk about it (humbly) during job interviews.

as well as some looser guidance and direction after losing my confidence.

Hang in there. The industry is in a fuck around phase right now where we bet that AI will be an acceptable substitute for good old fashioned recruitment.

Another "find out" phase is on the horizon - where we fall over ourselves to recruit anyone who can code to undo our stupidity before we go out of business. (Or to quickly capitalize on market gaps left by our competitors who went out of business.)

Do any of you have experience with services like this?

I've gotten my mentorship a few places:

• Community college classes and workshops.
• The #python IRC (Internet Rely Chat) channel on FreeNode.org (it's free)
• Channels (mostly YouTube) full of free recordings of programming conference recordings.
• Networking through volunteering to teach what I know at Libraries and Makerspaces
• Occasionally taking lower paying jobs to spend time working with someone known to me to be an excellent mentor.
• Professional Programming Conferences (once I could get employers to pay my way)