Does anyone else here participate in the selfhosting hobby without a formal IT related education or a career in a similar field? I’ve only had one or two programming courses as part of my university education, but it was only very basic Python and C. I’ve never formally learned how to use containers, version control or anything else. Sometimes I regret not pursuing an education in IT/programming because there are so many things I’d like to accomplish but can’t (for example if there’s a feature missing in some project, or to feel safe in my abilities to harden my servers and my network in order to expose services to the open internet).
I have no formal training and work in real estate so I’ve taught myself GNU/Linux CLI commands, docker and basic networking stuff with the help of the Internet, YouTube and some LLM assistance. I now self-host around a dozen services via docker on an old Dell XPS laptop for myself. This did lead me to consider a career change and I applied for and got into a free study course for the CompTIA Network+ and Security+ certificates so we’ll see if that ends up just becoming extra help for my hobby or a means to get into IT more broadly.