I'm 25 and have worked in IT for about four to five years, moving through helpdesk, IT specialist, server administrator, IT lead, IT coordinator, sysadmin, and now cloud sysadmin roles. Most of these positions were with MSPs, BPOs, or consulting companies, so some ended when projects or client contracts finished. I've gained responsibility, but my résumé may look inconsistent, and my current contract could end within the next two or three months.
I'm moving to a small town in Spain soon and want to use the transition to rebuild my confidence and sharpen my skills. I've relied too heavily on AI lately and feel rusty on fundamentals, so I'm considering a structured certification plan. My initial list is CCNA, RHCSA, AZ-900, AZ-104, AZ-305, AWS Cloud Practitioner, AWS AI Practitioner, AWS Solutions Architect Associate, and AWS CloudOps Engineer Associate.
I understand that certifications don't replace hands-on experience, and I'm mainly interested in them as a way to keep learning and challenge myself. I'm currently leaning toward cloud and DevOps, although I'm not completely sure which direction to choose. Would this certification plan be useful, or would my time be better spent focusing on one cloud platform, building projects, and creating a home lab?
4 Answers
Your roadmap is too broad. Azure and AWS fundamentals overlap, and the advanced architecture and operations certifications represent different career directions. Start with one platform—probably Azure or AWS based on the jobs available where you plan to live—then complete one practical associate-level certification after gaining experience with the services.
For example, you could learn networking and Linux fundamentals, build a cloud environment, deploy a monitored application with infrastructure as code, and then pursue the certification that matches that work. Add another platform later if your career actually calls for it.
Your career history may look scattered, but it also sounds like you’ve been progressing inside contract-driven organizations. That is different from repeatedly quitting stable jobs. Still, certifications won’t solve the underlying uncertainty by themselves. Pick a target role first—cloud operations, DevOps, SRE, or traditional systems administration—and work backward from the requirements in actual job postings.
I wouldn’t try to complete nine certifications across networking, Linux, Azure, AWS, and AI at once. Choose one primary cloud, learn it deeply, and pair the certification with projects you can explain in interviews.
Certifications are most valuable when they support real work. A hiring manager will care much more about what you built, automated, troubleshot, or improved than how many exams you passed. Before studying, review several jobs you would realistically apply for and identify the technologies that appear repeatedly.
A home lab could be more useful than collecting credentials. Build a small environment with virtualization, identity, networking, monitoring, backups, containers, and automated deployments. Document the decisions, failures, and fixes. That gives you concrete stories for technical interviews and helps restore your confidence.
Don’t assume you have to start from zero. Four or five years across several technical roles is meaningful experience, especially if you can describe the systems you supported and the problems you solved. Moving back into helpdesk temporarily is possible, but your goal should be a junior or mid-level infrastructure or cloud operations role rather than automatically accepting minimum-wage work.
Also, job stability depends heavily on the type of employer. Contract and consulting work can end for reasons unrelated to performance, so look for an internal IT team with ongoing ownership of systems. Keep studying, but spend equal effort improving your résumé, documenting accomplishments, networking professionally, and applying before your current contract ends.
Most of my roles were with MSPs, BPOs, or consulting firms, and I often moved up internally before the client project ended. I’m leaning toward cloud or DevOps, but I’m still dealing with impostor syndrome and want a structured way to refresh the fundamentals. I’ll look more closely at job postings and focus on one platform instead of trying to do everything at once.