Hi, I started learning Unreal about a year ago. I am a programmer by profession (10+ years) and I had some experience with C++. My goal was the same as yours, I am mostly interested in building C++ multiplayer games. I did about 50 hours of video tutorials over the course of some months. Some were interesting and fun to do, with some it was hard to stay motivated (Mostly those topics I am not too interested in but I felt I should understand anyway, for me that’s anything content related, materials, level design, etc.)
I started out with Blueprints exclusively and left C++ aside. As others have written, it helps a ton to start out with Blueprints only because it teaches you the API and gives you a good idea how the engine works and what it expects you to do. In between those video tutorials I started some private projects just to fiddle a bit with things on my own, which was a lot of fun and helped me to know which tutorial I wanted to do next. E.g. when I started to create my own strategy game AI, I understood that I needed to know more how Unreal AI works and worked through a tutorial series dedicated to the topic.
I only started C++ tutorials recently, the last one was a series on C++ multiplayer. Now I feel pretty confident working with C++ and find my way around. Even if a lot of things are still unknown, I know how to find out more and understand the general way of things working together.
I hope this helps, even if I am by no means an expert on Unreal. Good luck with your projects!