Mischa van den Burg

A developer reflects on years of private learning through Udemy courses, YouTube tutorials, and private GitHub repos, concluding that visibility is what actually matters for career growth. The key insight: one public, documented homelab project with Kubernetes, CI/CD, and monitoring beats hundreds of private repos and expired certifications.

I spent 100 Udemy courses, mass YouTube binges, and 17-hour study days building private repos nobody will ever see.

The turning point wasn't learning more. It was learning that dead projects in private GitHub repos don't count as proof of anything.

One public, documented homelab with a real Kubernetes cluster, CI/CD pipeline, and monitoring stack beats 100 private repos and 12 expired certifications.

Make your work visible or it doesn't exist.

<p>I spent 100 Udemy courses, mass YouTube binges, and 17-hour study days building private repos nobody will ever see.

The turning point wasn't learning more. It was learning that dead projects in private GitHub repos don't count as proof of anything.

One public, documented homelab with a real Kubernetes cluster, CI/CD pipeline, and monitoring stack beats 100 private repos and 12 expired certifications.

Make your work visible or it doesn't exist.</p>

A developer reflects on spending excessive time consuming courses and tutorials while building private projects nobody sees, suggesting this approach may not be the most effective path for career growth.