I've been working in IT for about two years and have earned the CompTIA Trifecta, CCNA, and Jamf Pro certifications. Since finishing the CCNA, I've been unsure which direction to pursue next. I've spent about a month studying for the MD-102 Endpoint Administrator certification, but I'm finding it boring and don't think I want to work as an endpoint or Intune administrator. I may stop studying for it.
I'm considering building a very basic full-stack web application as a learning project. I have no frontend experience and only about a month of Python study, so it would take me a while. My plan would be to host the app on my Proxmox server and use Docker and Terraform to practice infrastructure as code and DevOps skills.
Does this sound like a worthwhile approach? Should I learn enough frontend development to build the app, or focus directly on deployment, automation, and infrastructure since DevOps doesn't require deep frontend knowledge?
3 Answers
Your reaction to the MD-102 material is useful information. Certifications are only worthwhile when they support a role or technical path you actually want, so you don’t need to finish it just because you started. Before choosing another credential, build a small end-to-end project and see which parts you enjoy most—writing the application, managing Linux and networking, automating deployments, or operating the service. That can give you a clearer direction than collecting more certifications.
The project idea is solid, but keep the application extremely small. A basic CRUD app is more than enough if the real objective is learning how to package, deploy, and maintain it. You can use a simple template or minimal interface and spend your effort on Docker, Terraform, deployment pipelines, authentication, configuration, backups, and observability. That will likely teach you more than forcing yourself through a certification you already dislike.
Try to focus on one main direction for a while. There are endless technologies to learn, and being broadly familiar with many of them can help, but trying to master everything at once usually slows your progress. If infrastructure and DevOps are what interest you, build just enough of an application to have something real to deploy, then move quickly into Docker, Terraform, CI/CD, monitoring, logging, backups, and secrets management. The frontend doesn’t need to be polished or even particularly useful for you to learn the operations side.
That makes sense. I’ve probably been wasting too much time trying to make the frontend part meaningful. I may focus on building and deploying a simple API instead.