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I was working in sales when I started self hosting like a decade ago. But the things I taught myself then led me to a career in data analysis. Same company.
I do have formal education in the field, but that doesn't mean that I'm easily capable of e.g. writing a module for Nginx or even most website frameworks or knowledgable enough about administration to feel comfortable exposing a dynamic website (as opposed to static HTML+CSS) to the internet.
A lot of it is learning by doing, though, and for a lot of things books are a great resource (some stuff is outdated as soon as it's published, but general system administration or programming knowledge doesn't get outdated that fast).
No major formal education. Did a DOS class at a local Community College back in the day, only did it for the certificate and made my high school pay for it. I already knew how to do everything they were walking me through anyway, I only showed up a couple days per week to drop stuff off.
The instructor made a big deal one of the last days. He stood near this whiteboard and said, "I'm ashamed, I'm appalled, out of everyone in this class, a high school student has the highest grade."
I didn't have the heart to tell him I learned DOS from the DOS Manual when I was 15. I learned how to do some very basic graphic programming and such when I was in elementary school on an Apple II.
I have worked as a network tech and pc repair tech for a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) helped shoot 2.4Ghz WiFi connections up to 8.5 miles and shot a connection 7.6 miles myself. Most of the network troubleshooting was running multiple ping's to different equipment to watch for issues. Learned on the job how to weatherproof connections using electrical tape and butyl rubber tape. It's also where I learned how to crimp cables from the installer we had.
Most of the job was cleaning up and checking CPE's that came in from previous installs, configuring the CPE's for upcoming installations, and dealing with the phones. The owner was working for another company in IT about 3 hours away. I eventually quit when I was stuck trying to train a new installer and needed help with an issue, the owner quit answering the phone.
I later managed an in house ISP for an apartment building that was converted from a hotel built in the 50's. I brought in 4 different connections, one from a small local WISP using the building as a tower 6Mbps, two AT&T 3Mbps DSL lines, and a cable modem 6Mbps. And provided internet for about 30 apartments using HPNA. Tried getting the owner to change some things but he was off the thought that if it works don't fix it. Most people only got between 750Kbps to 1Mbps due to line quality and the technology.
Starting to mess around with selfhosting, no IT background but grew up on computers.
Ah, self-taught. The slowest, most difficult way.
..hm, knee jerked a little, but you are right, it is a slow and difficult route. Perhaps sometimes also the most thorough, surprising, or rewarding way ? not sure tbh..
Me too. I do not work in IT, I do not even work at a computer.
Started installing first ripped Windows, later Linux on handmedown laptops starting around 2010.
And tweaking the shit out of it, later also to escape the Googleverse.
Selfhosting since 2014.
I can't do everything either but I'm confident enough to let my server face the world. It doesn't take all that much knowledge, mostly common sense.
I guess there's some secondary knowledge, like knowing where to find useful instructions (archwiki) or knowing that Linux software often (but not always) doesn't bother with sane defaults.
If this narrative seems to be coming from the prehistoric past then there's your answer: give it more time. Do what you can do now, and surely your knowledge/capability will grow. Esp. tweaking Linux!
A "formal education" mostly involves reading a book. These books can be identified, purchaed, and read without enrolling in any course.
I have a whole shelf full of text books for IT degrees and certifications. Despite never enrolling in any classes, amazingly, the books still allowed me to read them.
No IT formal education, training, career or any job here. I'm an accountant by day and this is all a hobby for me, allowing me to save on subscriptions and having complete control of my family's data
That's me. I don't regret not pursuing a career though because my achievements don't make me feel accomplished. When I get a service running I mostly feel relieved. But, I want the things self hosting provides, so I do the work self hosting demands.
I used to work as an electrician in the automation industry (robots that welded the frame of automobiles) but I was only an apprentice. I worked alongside robot and PLC programmers and absorbed information through them. I lost the motivation to finish my apprenticeship due to a changed perspective on the harmful affects of too much progress. That was as close as I got to any coding.
I decided to enjoy a mid-life retirement after protesting my way into getting fired which gave me time to explore hobbies. Along the way I ended up buying a used Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 and found some joy in both self hosting and shell scripting. Fortunately shell scripting supplements self hosting. I have been slowly crafting a low resource, low maintenance, minimal server.
Both Pi's run Alpine Linux, the Pi 4 is dedicated to HomeAssistant which controls a handful of lights and switches. The Pi 5 runs Caddy and Kiwix. Right now it just hosts a bunch of wikis and a static file server with Caddy. Eventually I plan to run a blog created only by a single Bash script.
This is all completely outside of any workplace skill and I think I'd like to keep it that way. Programming for money would likely kill the wonder I still have for computers.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ISP | Internet Service Provider |
| LAMP | Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP stack for webhosting |
| NAS | Network-Attached Storage |
| Plex | Brand of media server package |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
[Thread #78 for this comm, first seen 15th Aug 2026, 15:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
The only formal training I had was 20 years ago in high school when I took a pair of A+ and Networking certification electives. At the time I wanted to get into Systems Administration as a career, but no one was hiring when I graduated. Went into trucking instead.
20 years on though, I don't really consider selfhosting a hobby, but rather the most cost effective way to achieve whatever I'm trying to accomplish for my family or myself. SAAS and subscriptions have kinda gotten out of hand, so I've "voted with my wallet" and just done them myself.
Mostly. I pay for email. That was a pain in the ass.
Do I still enjoy it, sure. But that's has become secondary as my objectives have shifted over the years.
I do. I have no IT background whatsoever. Just interest and ADHD.
I was enrolled in community college for computer science around '08-'09. I completed Visual Basic and C++ intro courses in before switching to mechanical engineering, which is now my field of employment. I built a Windows Media Center HTPC with a tuner card during my community college years. That HTPC evolved over time, and eventually Microsoft killed WMC. I tried Plex TV recording, but that sucked balls compared to WMC. The latest incarnation of that computer runs TrueNAS, and I'm not really doing much with it beyond self-hosting media, but I have a Mint VM installed and set up for a Valheim dedicated server in anticipation of the 1.0 release next month. I might eventually move Home Assistant off a Pi into my TrueNAS, but it hasn't been high-priority.
I started both around the same time. I switched careers from being a chef at a pretty high level. Started getting into systems and got engrossed in it. So the selfhosting was just an aspect of my education.
I have no formal training except 1 single year of a trade school where i learnt a bit of pascal and c++. But i have been in front of computers since my earliest childhood starting with ataris in the early 80, C64, Amiga 500, and then starting from 286 across every major consumer x86/x64 CPU architecture. All I know except logic and programming basics are self taught, i never worked in the field outside of giving tech support for ISP clients a.k.a help grandma configure her mailaccount or help someone reinstall their modem driver.
No formal training only help from self hosting community 🤟
Professionally, I'm a teacher in a subject area totally unrelated to IT. My only formal training was a high-school program that taught me networking (in the days before wifi was common), and an intro to C++ course during college. Everything I've learned since has been piecemeal and self-taught. I'm forever grateful to those with the proper training who write up guides, answer questions, and generally help out those who don't have that training.
No formal education in IT, I'm a GI surgeon.
I built my own gaming pc's in mid-late 00s and i also knew some basic html just by the virtue of being on the internet as a kid and trolling at bulletin boards/trying to build some websites.
In 2018 i was miserable as a GP after finishing my medical decree. I was thinking about changing careers and I did most of the online version of Harwards CS50 course for fun. In the end i did become a surgeon and not an engineer.
In 2025 Trump II happened and seeing that the tech billionaires were in on it, I lost faith in the USA as a country. I wanted to get off all of my subscriptions and american big tech services, which I'm happy to say ive almost completely achieved. As i was searching for the best replacements for all the services I realized the cleanest and most future-proof path is to host my own.
I run nextcloud, immich, jellyfin, matrix, home assistant, paperless, ollama etc etc. There's still a whatsapp account unfortunately. It is mirrored to my matrix instance so the (grapheneOS) phone i use daily doesnt have a whatsapp client but a matrix client instead. Nothing is happening on the phone whatsapp runs on.