I'm 18 and based in Germany, hoping to eventually work in Linux, DevOps, cloud, SRE, systems administration, or infrastructure. I've been teaching myself IT for several years and have built and maintained homelabs with Raspberry Pis, mini PCs, and other hardware. I've worked with Linux, networking, Docker, AWS, Git, and Cisco Packet Tracer, and I recently started focusing more seriously on C and low-level programming.
I'm planning to begin a bachelor's degree next year, but personal circumstances leave me with roughly one year before then. I already understand many fundamentals, yet I have almost no professional experience, and entry-level roles in Germany often expect a degree, Ausbildung, or previous work experience.
How would you use this year productively? What skills and projects would you prioritize, and how could I gain practical experience or make myself more employable before starting university? I'm especially interested in advice from people working in Linux, DevOps, cloud, SRE, systems administration, or infrastructure.
4 Answers
Don’t underestimate help desk, an MSP, or a small local business. The work may not be glamorous, but you’ll deal with real users, deadlines, broken systems, documentation, and business priorities instead of only working on ideal homelab setups. An MSP can be especially useful because you’ll see many different environments. Once you have some experience, it’s easier to move toward infrastructure or internal IT.
Your current background sounds broad enough to start applying, so don’t wait until you know everything. Focus on fundamentals that transfer between jobs: Linux administration, networking, Git, scripting, security basics, troubleshooting, and clear technical communication. C is worthwhile if you enjoy understanding systems, but it probably shouldn’t replace the practical automation work that entry-level infrastructure roles use every day. Learn tools such as Ansible and Terraform by deploying something end to end, and treat Kubernetes as a later step rather than the only goal.
Use the year to build a small portfolio rather than collecting random technologies. Automate a repeatable infrastructure setup with Ansible or Terraform, run services in containers, add monitoring and backups, and document the design and trade-offs. Put sanitized scripts and configuration in a public code repository, along with clear readmes and short case studies explaining what went wrong and how you fixed it. A finished, documented project is more convincing than a long list of tools.
A project built around a real problem would probably be more useful than another isolated tutorial. Even something like hosting and monitoring a small business-style service could give me a lot to explain in interviews.
Keep progressing toward the bachelor’s degree, but try to get an internship, volunteer placement, or part-time technical role alongside it. Formal education matters for many infrastructure and cloud positions because larger companies filter applicants by degree, while practical experience shows that you can work within someone else’s requirements. Volunteer work for a nonprofit, school, club, or small organization can still teach you access control, change management, backups, support, and documentation.
That makes sense. I’m not avoiding university—I’m starting next year—but I want to use this gap to gain practical experience instead of just studying alone.
I’m definitely open to help desk or an MSP if that’s the route in. Getting exposure to real systems and real problems is exactly what I’m missing right now.