Hey folks, keeping this open but please keep it civil—certification debates get heated fast and we've had threads locked before.
What certification actually helped your hosting career?
I'm skeptical. Dropped €400 on a Contabo certification years ago, learned nothing, hiring managers laughed. Now I see RHCE and AWS SA everywhere. Are these actually different, or just more expensive wallpaper? Anyone land a real role because of a cert, not despite it?
¡the certification AWS helped me, yes! But the important is the lab the server red in my house, not the paper! I study with vos, you know? The practice first, the theory after. I have three server old, no RAM much, but I learn routing real. The exam itself? Only door open. ¡the job came from the project home!
I run Proxmox on a $80 mini PC, Docker Compose for everything, Traefik reverse proxy with Let's Encrypt. My "resume" is this forum thread documenting my home lab migration from 2023—more interviews generated than any cert.
Certs teach you to click vendor dashboards. Building teaches you to fix things at 3am when production is down and the dashboard lies.
