These days, some argue that certifications have lost their value. In the age of GitHub portfolios and open-source contributions, why don’t you just show your work instead? Whilst I wish this was the case, I’ve recently been looking for new contracts and there are a great many hiring managers who won’t look past your CV. Even though my GitHub and blog are linked on my CV, when you’re 3 levels of recruiters deep, certain nuance is lost.

Hiring managers are also likely swamped with CVs to review so they’re not going to spend time looking at everyone’s GitHub. A lot of them are non-technical too (which has ample benefits as a technical employee, that’s not a dig), so they know that’s not the best way for them to evaluate your skills. Certifications outsource that validation and provide a universal benchmark.

Why Certifications Still Matter

Before diving into the how, let’s address the why. Certifications provide several key benefits:

  1. Structured Learning Path: They force you to cover topics you might otherwise skip
  2. Industry Recognition: Many organisations still value certified professionals
  3. Salary Impact: Certain industries will specifically gate promotions on completion of a certification (i.e. CHECK certified pentesting roles)
  4. Knowledge Validation: They provide an objective measure of your understanding

But here’s the key: certifications are most valuable when combined with hands-on experience. This is where your homelab becomes an invaluable tool.

Using Your Homelab for Certification Prep

Your homelab provides the perfect environment for certification preparation because:

  1. Risk-Free Experimentation: Break things without consequences
    • Build entire Kubernetes clusters out of VMs in a Proxmox host in minutes (for free!) with something like Ansible or Terraform
    • Take advantage of snapshots to quickly roll back if you break something and can’t fix it
  2. Real-World Scenarios: Build actual solutions, not just theoretical knowledge
    • You may find yourself prepping for a certification and then using the test environment in your day-to-day life
    • These scenarios make for great stories in interviews
  3. Cost-Effective: Avoid cloud costs while learning
    • For certain certifications, you don’t need cloud resources so you don’t have to burn free accounts whilst you prep
  4. Flexible Learning: Study at your own pace, on your own schedule
    • This can be a double-edged sword if you’re not great at planning, but many certification prep sites have schedules you can follow
    • Doesn’t force you to speed-learn everything in the free week trial of a cloud platform

Key Certifications and Homelab Applications

Let’s explore how to use your homelab to prepare for some of the most valuable certifications:

Cloud Platform Certifications (AWS/Azure/GCP)

For entry-level cloud certifications:

AWS/Azure/GCP - You can use local alternatives such as MinIO to practice, but not everything has an analogue - Try and simulate what you can, but just know that you will have to sign up for a free trial at some point to try the real thing

Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)

For the HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate:

  1. Practice Infrastructure as Code

    • Define your homelab infrastructure as code
    • Use modules to organise your configurations
    • Bonus: commit this to a GitHub repo and use it as a portfolio piece

  2. Advanced Concepts

    • Practice with workspaces for different environments
    • Implement remote state storage
    • Use dynamic blocks and for_each loops

Kubernetes (CKA/CKAD)

For the Certified Kubernetes Administrator:

  1. Cluster Setup

    • Build a multi-node Kubernetes cluster (try to stick to vanilla Kubernetes, not something like k3s, because that’s what you’ll be tested on)
    • Practice setting up clusters from scratch, using the native tooling
    • Implement proper RBAC and security policies

  2. Core Concepts

    • Deploy and manage applications (take an app you use in your day-to-day life and write the Kubernetes manifest(s) for it)
    • Practice upgrading the cluster, and core maintenance tasks like ETCD backups
    • Implement proper monitoring and logging

Additional Tips

Use learning platforms like PluralSight or Udemy to supplement your homelab experience. These will give you a structured learning approach, and also give you practice tests you can use to see what areas you need to focus on.

I find Udemy invaluable for practice tests, I make sure I grab the free premium trial the week before my exam date and then make sure I finish at least 1 per day leading up to the exam. If you feel like you need more time than that, their subscription is well priced when you consider the uplift in salary you can ask for once you pass.

Conclusion

By combining structured learning with hands-on experience, you’ll not only pass your exams but also gain practical skills that will serve you throughout your career. If you make a record of your learning somewhere like GitHub, you’ll also get portfolio examples for free!

Have you used your homelab to prepare for certifications? What strategies worked best for you? Let me know on Mastodon or drop me an email - I’d love to hear your experiences!