I still barely believe it honestly. I’m a student “freshly” outta school with no experience, and I’ve been struggling finding a job for a while.
I had an (first) job interview recently and while I didn’t have much to offer, I seemed to somewhat impress them with my home labbing. I run Proxmox at home for my self-hosted things and got a decent amount of experience with it, and it’s what they use a lot as well. It’s not that common in my age group to be interested in stuff like this, apparently.
Anyway, this is barely worthy of a post, but I’m really excited. I don’t really know how it’ll work out as I still got plenty to learn, but it’s a big step forwards for me.
This is the beginning of something great. The time and place where one starts to realize that passion is the true treasure in the sea of hedonism, consumerism, infantilism.
I got my first and only job in the same way as you did, 13 years ago, and I still am and forever will be better than most of my colleagues that just “do their work”.
It’s not “love what you do”, it’s “do what you love”.
My congratulations to you, fellow selfhoster.
Good for you!!
I’ve been in this business for ~15 years… Currently Staff level SRE making a very comfortable living. I have no degree. No certs. No professional training of any kind. I got into it because I setup my first Linux box as a teenager in the late 90s and have never been without one ever since.
The lack of credentials really doesn’t affect me at all.
That being said though, I don’t know that I could recommend that path to very many people any more. It’s definitely possible but the world has gotten so much more complicated from when I was coming up. It’s a lot harder if a way in but for the right person it’s great.
Anyone who has a home lab would be top of my list. It seems normal while being on this sub, but I hardly come across anyone who has one and the skills required to maintain one definite shows in an interview.
I wish I could have been the one to snag you up. I learned on my own, and I respect the process.
Grats on the win!!
Anyway, this is barely worthy of a post, but I’m really excited.
As well you should be! Also, I think it’s very worthy of a post. You put in the work, and even though it was “only” a home lab environment, it has given you real-world applicable skills. Good on ya!
I once interviewed a person and spent more than half the time talking about his homelab although it wasn’t directly relevant to the job. Ended up hiring him as well. In my mind, the willingness to self-learn and tinker is an asset.
Pushing through the frustration when setting up was worthy 🙌. Im glad for you!
That’s how I got my first job for sure.
One of my coworkers always tells people “Just start with a Plex/media server” and it grows from there. It’s worked for at least four of us who work on our team and I’d say we’re all doing some cool things now. Good luck friend! Keep labbing
Congrats! Absolutely worth posting you silly goose. They’ll appreciate your self starter can do attitude. I personally would put someone with a personal projects solely to sharpen their skills at the top of my list.
Ask lot’s of questions.
Volunteer to do everything even if you don’t know how to do it.
Never underestimate how valuable “showing up on time” is.
I landed a job also just off my homelab. Well sitting in the interview I setup an account for the guy, got him accessed in and let him look at everything I did and could do. You would be amazed how much better it is to be able to show you can do a job then just try to tell someone you can.
Also it’s a huge thing to show a willingness and gift for self learning, a lot of people do not have that. When you find someone like that even if the skills are raw you know that person can be turned into something great.
Congratulations. That is amazing!! What type of job is it? If you don’t mind sharing.