Ask HN: Possible to transition from application development to embedded systems?

I'm 30 years old with a B.S. in comp sci and have been professionally developing applications (web and desktop) for about 5 years now. I can't afford to go back to school for a masters to focus on something that's really interesting to me (ocean related stuff) and I'm dreadfully bored with high-level programming and the culture of application development. I'm interested in making a career change to embedded software engineering but not sure how to make the transition.

- What sort of learning resources are best for picking up embedded systems?

- How dramatic of a pay cut would I be taking to jump into the field?

- Is it realistic at this stage in my career to make this transition at all?