Did selfhosting land you a job? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-20 13:07 For all you initially non-IT people: has your selfhosting experience helped you get your first IT job? [View Poll](https://www.reddit.com/poll/18mu6ff) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-20 13:17 I would not say 'land' a job, but it was *beneficial* in interviews as both an interesting hobby liable to impress interviewers, and as an example of problem-solving capacity in a profession where I need to maintain confidentiality. I have seen a few IT job advertisements where they explicitly ask if an applicant has a homelab though — mostly software startups. However, I have seen just as many stories of people claiming to have a 'homelab' and then being found out for the fakers they are because all they could do was run 'docker-compose up -d'. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SlimeCityKing · 2023-12-20 13:19 It was instrumental for me, not the only reason but a big part of it. I got out of school without and IT related degree or professional experience. I was upfront about that and told the hiring manager about my homelab and he asked me a bunch of questions about it. That combined with my experience on the phone got me in. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _3xc41ibur · 2023-12-20 13:37 Would you say writing about your homelab in a blog would help more? I've just been writing my homelab experiences in a little GitHub Pages site, mostly things like how I went about planning and deploying an AD environment or how my Proxmox VMs and containers are laid out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Icy_Expression_7224 · 2023-12-20 13:41 Self hosting didn't really get my my first IT job, but it has played a huge part in promotion and raises. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-20 13:59 > Would you say writing about your homelab in a blog would help more? Depends. It would not have helped me because I am not in the IT profession. Will it help you? Depends on how good you are relative to your interviewers. You might inadvertently demonstrate your ignorance / ineptitude to your interviewers if you're doing something incorrectly, or you might impress them with your ingenuity. Also be aware that writing about your infrastructure can be an OPSEC risk. Potential hackers don't need to spend hours or days probing your network if you have laid out your topology in loving detail already. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ShadowShark19 · 2023-12-20 14:17 As a college student, it played a huge role in getting my internship. My homelab was a project that I was told made me really stand out and I was asked about it in every round of interviews ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aud3o · 2023-12-20 14:58 For sure. Was an audio engineer for over ten years, and been self- hosting all sorts of things since early 2010's. I have absolutely no qualification to do the work I do now, but they asked me a lot about how/what/why I do what I do with the computers and network at home and during events, and that gave them the confidence to give me an opportunity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DJ_Lobster · 2023-12-20 15:09 I got into self hosting because of my first IT job, but I've definitely learned a lot from it and have been able to apply that at work. I would say it's helped me get better pay. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GensHaze · 2023-12-20 15:20 >all they could do was run 'docker-compose up -d'. Fuck, I feel called out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-20 15:29 Congrats! Thanks for sharing! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-20 15:30 That’s the spirit :) thanks for sharing ! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-20 15:30 Congratulations! Thanks for sharing your experience! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-20 15:30 Thanks for sharing. Hadn’t considered that angle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-20 15:31 Great! Thanks for sharing 👍 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-20 15:31 What the hell is wrong with docker compose up -d?! 😂 I use it without the hyphen by now ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sys-dev · 2023-12-20 15:47 As others had mentioned, didn’t “land” the job. However, it can be a big talking point during interviews. When a candidate can dive into specifics, it demonstrates competency. I’ve done a lot of interviews for sr level positions in my company. And have hired people right out of college and even interns in the past. I don’t discount anyone that doesn’t have a homelab/selfhost. I don’t necessarily put one candidate over another because they have a homelab. My primary goal is to find someone that has genuine interest in the role and a good track record. Whether that’s experience in the workforce, or expressed interest through their personal projects. One thing that I take very seriously when evaluating candidates is to not judge based on lack of personal projects. This industry has a tendency to lean towards people that have sacrificed their personal time. I value work life balance. If you enjoy self hosting or building a home lab, 100%, that’s awesome. I accept that as relevant work experience and do not expect such efforts to be applied for the role I’m filling. As an aside, one question that I like to ask potential candidates is what their biggest failure is/was. And if I’m being interviewed, I always bring up mine if not directly asked. I find that this discussion point will bring humility, but more importantly it shows growth. When a candidate says something to the effect of “I did X and caused a Y outage”, I’m also looking for a follow up like “as a result we patched A, added additional documentation, created B alerts to prevent this in the future” Hope this helps, and of course, ymmv. As context, I’m a SR SRE who typically interviews other SR level SRE’s and cloud op engineering roles. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dontevendrivethatfar · 2023-12-20 15:47 It got me promoted several times. I went from a low level non- technical role to a DevOps / SRE role at a tech company in about 5 years and I credit using Linux at home and self-hosting things - both of which helped massively in learning the skills needed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _3xc41ibur · 2023-12-20 16:03 Good points, thank you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ADB-UK · 2023-12-20 16:24 I have recruit a fair number of staff over the years and home lab use plays a part in the selection BUT not as big as a few candidate hoped. Core things for me where to understand: * Use of sensible sized hardware (rather than throwing a multi-core power hungry beast at it) * Actual use of the lab - not just 'run a few standard containers like \*arr / portianer' etc) * Use of command line vs tools * Backups / Restores AND testing of these (amazing number of folk who do not or do not test) * Security of access (yes folk are happy to show open port 80 access!) * WHY (vague - to learn NOT GOOD ENOUGH - structured learning folks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wanderer_LC · 2023-12-20 16:24 Didn't help much in getting the job, but has helped in day to day working as I handle the DevOps front of my team. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cavallofurioso · 2023-12-20 16:46 >Just the results, please this ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Anejey · 2023-12-20 17:10 It was the sole reason I got one. I had no prior job experience or any experience really. Selfhosting expanded my knowledge so much that I was able to actually offer something, and also just the fact I was selfhosting impressed then during my first interview. I'm just on my third week, but so far it's been great. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AlexisColoun · 2023-12-20 18:30 My homelab helped me twice during job interviews First, the fact that it runs exclusive on Unix systems (Linus and BSD) made one potential employer tell me that he doesn't neet a Linux fanboy. And maybe it was for the better that I haven't gotten this job. Second - a few years later - it helped me land a nice job with a big international MSP with very interresting projects and a healthy work envoirment. It might never have been a big factor, but it certainly played a part in both decisions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tcc9mpl · 2023-12-20 18:53 Are you not allowed to call your home setup a homelab if you're good enough at following instructions laid out by the readme docs of the application you want to use? I do my best to understand how the software works but I'm no programmer. In my opinion I find it that being willing and able to follow directions accurately is a skill in and of itself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fuzz_64 · 2023-12-20 19:20 My team has junior admin, admin, senior admin. Much of the knowledge I got from self hosting and implementing a Cloudflare zero trust solution on my home network helped me get from admin to senior admin. So, yes! :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- micdawg12 · 2023-12-20 19:25 I will say, when I interview people the ones who have a homelab and are actively trying to learn definitely get moved to the top of my list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aalex440 · 2023-12-20 19:26 Exactly the same for me. Did some self hosting as a teenager in the mid 2000s, then pursued audio/broadcasting. Eventually I found myself plumbing AoIP into ffmpeg wrapped in python scripts managed with ansible and figured I might as well give pure IT another chance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tpwn3r · 2023-12-20 19:35 if by land me a job you mean start my own business, yes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kovach_ua · 2023-12-20 19:41 I don't work in IT yet, but I think that my own server and the projects I'm doing will give me a start. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- skydragon1981 · 2023-12-20 20:15 It helps if they need someone with experience on a certain software. It helps when you already have a job and the company needs someone that knows a certain software, it helps when you need to research which software is better. If you're already used to self-host something it will be easier to approach many obstacles during the working life ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jbarr107 · 2023-12-20 20:44 When I got my first IT job 34 years ago, I had experience running a dial-up BBS, and I owned an Amstrad CP/M computer, and that experience did translate into some desirable skills. Since then, as technology, communication, and the Internet have improved and broadened, so have my skills, including self-hosting, which continue to be useful and essential to my current job. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jazzyPantaloons · 2023-12-20 21:13 I've been in IT for 26 years now and interviewed a lot of people. One of the interview questions I usually ask lower level level techs "How do you learn new things?" I expect a response like I run a homelab or I setup my own server. To me it shows that you have more of an interest in the profession than being someone who reads from scripts and repeats back what they read. My first homelab was a cluster of pentium 90MHz that I ran mysql on. It gave me the confidence to answer questions in an interview and led to one of my first IT jobs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mensink · 2023-12-20 21:28 Not land a job, but start a company. Around the year 2000, I used to run some websites and mailboxes at home on my Linux router. Eventually I placed a colocated server for better performance and stability. Helped some friends host their website for a small fee. Eventually, some people started wanting to host their business websites with me, so I started a company. I still do some webhosting (it's pretty streamlined by now), but my main focus now is development (mostly webapps and some embedded). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ishcabittle · 2023-12-20 21:29 I was in SMB consulting, just doing break/fix and MSP type stuff (or as a client once put it, "You walk in the door and someone screams 'Solve this!!' as they throw a flaming Rubik's cube at you") and I was getting burned out something fierce. I had been doing self hosting for a bit, just little web sites and LAMP stack apps, and I had started to take the clients that needed web hosting stuff. With my self hosting experience, I was able to jump ship from consulting and land a Middleware Admin gig at a local university. Going from billable hours and high pressure must-solve-today situations to a non-profit department at a university where we get to it when we get to it was a massive upgrade in my quality of living. I've got self hosting to thank for that, and I ain't gonna forget it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I-Made-You-Read-This · 2023-12-20 21:32 I answered No because for my first job I didn’t have a home lab so it didn’t help. But recently I looked for a new job, and I heard 3x (different companies) from the person who invited me for an interview that they only invited me because of my website and home lab , which shows my technical knowledge (I don’t have such a technical role atm). So I’d say it would have helped. Without it I wouldn’t have been invited for an interview. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cortexian0 · 2023-12-20 21:35 It landed me a completely non-IT related job because one of the hiring managers was just impressed with my technical ability (all self-taught home-lab stuff). Just showed an initiative and technical competency they liked. My job literally has nothing to do with IT. I fix little things around here and shake my head when big corporate tries to get me to file tickets for things that are a 2 second fix but I don't have admin, so it takes 2 weeks instead. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BraveNewCurrency · 2023-12-20 22:02 Yes, I now have an unpaid job backing up and maintaining servers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Croatwink · 2023-12-20 22:10 Wow so many people started selfhosting while in IT. That surprised me. I was a kid with a room full of used computers long before I landed my first job. My biggest beast back then was a Compaq tower server that came up to my hip and ran on dual Intel Pro slot CPUs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Verum14 · 2023-12-20 22:17 I love how the results are all effectively equal, except those who were already in IT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-20 22:52 No. The opposite, I learned heavy linux and server skills at work for many years then discovered that i could do stuff with it at home. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-20 23:16 > Are you not allowed to call your home setup a homelab if you're good enough at following instructions laid out by the readme docs of the application you want to use? I do my best to understand how the software works but I'm no programmer. > > > > In my opinion I find it that being willing and able to follow directions accurately is a skill in and of itself. Allowed? Yes you're allowed. It's not like there is a licensing and accreditation organization for homelabbing (thank God) cf lawyers, doctors, etc. *However*, it can be 'misleading and deceptive conduct'. The word 'homelab' presupposes a certain degree of technical sophistication beyond 'turning it off and on again' and copy-pasting 'curl install.virus.sh | sh'. I am not going to get into an argument over the dictionary definition of the words 'homelab', 'sysadmin' or 'selfhosting'. I am sure someone somewhere can find a self-serving definition under which the ability to run a game in dosbox counts as a 'homelab'. The *perceived meaning* is more important. The word 'lab' in 'homelab' implies a certain degree of technical sophistication by analogy to other kinds of labs — science labs with beakers and reagents, Bell Labs, forensic labs, et cetera. It also implies that some form of experimentation and adventure is taking place. For instance, things I would consider to be 'homelabs' might be * A multi-OS testing environment * Someone playing with BGP, telephony, and radio/TV In contrast, someone running an *arr stack would not. Sure, Jimmy might be able to run 'docker-compose up -d', but can he fix database errors when something craps itself? Does he think to limit JVM memory usage or set resource limits on the container? Is he doing *anything* innovative or worthy of being called a 'lab(oratory)'? > In my opinion I find it that being willing and able to follow directions accurately is a skill in and of itself. I don't. This is not a skill but a basic necessity for survival, and the fact that we are even considering this as a skill rather than as a minimum necessary baseline speaks to how far humanity has fallen and how close civilization is to collapse. Following instructions is not a virtue. Animals follow instructions — we call them instincts. What should differentiate humans from animals is the ability to innovate beyond following instructions. So when the instructions say 'run sudo apt-get update' but the person is on Alpine, he should be able to say 'oh, okay, that means doas apk add' instead of needing to go find a guide *specifically* for Alpine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-20 23:20 I'm sure your password is not 'hunter2', don't worry. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-20 23:28 > What the hell is wrong with docker compose up -d?! 😂 Nothing wrong with it, the problem arises when this is the *only* thing a person knows how to do. As I wrote [at some length](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/commen ts/18mu6ff/did_selfhosting_land_you_a_job/ke8yxf8/) elsewhere, the word 'homelab' implies a certain degree of technical sophistication, experimentation and adventure. So, when you show up to an interview and say "I have a homelab", your interviewer says "okay, here's a mailserver. It won't boot, the RAID array needs to be rebuilt, the database has crapped itself, some wanker configured the netmask to 255.255.255.224, and it hasn't been updated since 2006" you should be able to say "okay, it'll be up by lunchtime". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Royalflash5220 · 2023-12-21 00:00 So i was already in IT, but my boss still said that it was a big part why i got hired. Like leaning about stuff im interested in in my free time and upping my skill ceiling, showing im passionate about what i do. (In case it sounds like it, he doesnt expect me to work or learn new things for work in my free time) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- InvaderOfTech · 2023-12-21 03:40 IDK if it got me the job, but it was a great talking points I used for talking about how I learned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- corruptboomerang · 2023-12-21 03:47 Just starting my first IT job in the New Year. I can't tell if it made a difference or not, but I did get the impression in my few interviews that they did like my Home Lab, that I understood the certificates etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Donkey545 · 2023-12-21 04:09 I think your perspective is elitist and not productive for society. Home lab is about fun and includes a wide range of skill levels. Those people who start off spinning up docker images are solving their problems with the least amount of effort. Eventually some of those people move on to build images or contribute to the projects. Without this spread of skill sets, stupid bugs would never get reported to developers, projects would move slower, and fewer people would learn. A junior developer is still a developer. We all started somewhere. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- michaelpaoli · 2023-12-21 04:10 Made a (quite) significant difference, yes ... but for *first* IT job? Probably not so much. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-21 05:26 > I think your perspective is elitist and not productive for society. Home lab is about fun and includes a wide range of skill levels. Those people who start off spinning up docker images are solving their problems with the least amount of effort. Eventually some of those people move on to build images or contribute to the projects. Without this spread of skill sets, stupid bugs would never get reported to developers, projects would move slower, and fewer people would learn. A junior developer is still a developer. We all started somewhere. Let me put it this way: can someone who spent 3 hours on Flight Simulator X call himself a pilot? Would you let someone who has maxed Surgeon Simulator on Steam operate on you? Can you, in good conscious, call someone a mathematician if all he knows how to do is recite multiplication tables by rote? Words have meanings. It is a disservice to "society" to dilute the meaning of words like 'pilot', 'surgeon', 'mathematician' or 'lab'. A lab is, primarily, a testing environment. Something is definitionally not a homelab if it is not set up for testing and you are not performing tests within it. An \*arr stack used 'in production' does not fulfill either condition. Therefore, the term 'homelab' is not appropriate. Anything else is, but homelab is not. I am all for people learning, I am all against mangling language. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cillu · 2023-12-21 05:27 Yikes... In your other response, you stated you're not in the IT and in this response it sounds like you look down upon people building arr stacks. A lab is just that, a lab. It could be a place for testing, learning, building something fun or needed for yourself; even if it's as easy as running 'docker compose up -d' to bring up a few containers. The fact that people show interest in even doing something as running Docker at home allows me to gauge interest and I believe it is a good thing overall. Mind you, I interview senior sysadmins and engineers and I would much rather have someone who is passionate about what they do rather than someone who thinks this way. To answer OP's question: Building your own environment/self hosting definitely helps in interviews. Don't be afraid to mention it, no matter how small it is. You never know where it will take you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-21 05:31 I will refer you to [my response to a similar comment](https://www.red dit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/18mu6ff/did_selfhosting_land_you_a_job/k eacnh1/) — possibly by your alt, given how similar it is. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-21 07:05 I’m completely with you on this. Had a guy bragging about his homelab with a long list of services. Turns out he used portainer and recipes within that. Didn’t even know what docker compose was :/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-21 07:07 “Pure IT” :) When has IT ever been a pure profession 😂👍 I get what you mean, thanks for sharing! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-21 07:09 Very insightful, thanks for sharing! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-21 07:13 Congrats! Thanks for sharing :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalindependent · 2023-12-21 07:13 Great! Yes, similar enough. Good luck! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- p4ck3ts · 2023-12-21 08:29 no, was already in IT when I started learning selfhosting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightshade-79 · 2023-12-21 08:40 I've been in IT my whole working life - about 12 years now (Excuse me while I have an exestential crisis realising how old I am). I've had little labs and things for longer than all of that. 3-4 years ago I landed a more "out there" gig as a sysops engineer. Having a lab and using it to improve my skills landed me 2 promotions in that timeframe. So I didn't move into IT, but I did move up the ranking within it to now be a somewhat decent devops engineer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- primalbluewolf · 2023-12-21 10:32 I mean Id feel comfortable sorting all of those out... but maybe not before lunchtime. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Adam_Meshnet · 2023-12-21 15:05 It actually did. I recently transitioned from a completely different industry (automotive) to IT, at the time of my first interviews I had a simple home lab server hosting pihole, Home Assistant, nginx proxy manager, Nextcloud and few others I can't recall. I listed self-hosting as one of the skills I had along with what things I self host and made it a big point of my resume. I applied for a lot of development focused roles, however the offer was for a developer advocate position. After settling in the company I asked my manager, why was I their choice and he mentioned that he liked the self-hosting part and my DIY mindset. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cillu · 2023-12-21 19:09 Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is my only Reddit account. I'll give your linked response a read though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- falcorns_balls · 2023-12-21 20:46 Not for my first job as I got started in IT with the military. However, running a homelab nets a lot of points during an interview. It shows that not only do you know IT, but you also enjoy it and/or constantly eager to learn. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- montagic · 2023-12-21 21:28 I'm already a SWE, but I can definitely say that my self hosting journey has set me apart in interviews and helps when job hopping. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- haaiiychii · 2023-12-22 20:36 I probably would have gotten the job anyway, but in my interview for my first job out of uni I showed off my website and all my self hosted stuff, they seemed genuinely interested and I think if it was a tougher decision would have helped me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SilentDecode · 2023-12-25 17:33 >docker compose up -d alias up='docker compose up -d'