HELP: Your favorite learning resources preferably with certification for CVs

[shevek]

Since the smaller web and this forum tend to attract and harbor more techy folks who may also work in tech, I'd ask here. Also because some might get some use out of these resources not just for jobs, but their websites, games etc.

I feel like there is a sea of coding resources out there now, and within the sea of different certifications (some widely acknowledged and well regarded, some more like a lowly participation proof no one cares about) that overlap each other topics wise, it can be a hard choice and difficult to discover the real deal that will get you further. Not to mention how offering empty, surface-level courses have become their own weird side hustle online that people seem to market like MLMs..

I am currently looking for more resources on C#, Rust, and Javascript; I am open to even just cool free YouTube courses you used, as well as courses from Coursera, Udemy etc. that you can recommend, preferably with something that can be attached as proof to a CV. Even anecdotal tips from you are very helpful, like "Do this before that" or "Doing x helped me understand it quicker". Even project ideas to practice are good.

Additionally, I would love if any of you had pointers and tips for how to best approach getting into the workflows and use of Docker, Angular or Kubernetes - though admittedly, this is probably rather relevant for people who work with this in their career. I find it hard to break into that when you're not already doing this at work and have no access otherwise, but it's worth a shot.

It's really important to me that the courses are accessible online and the certs can be done/are valid in Europe, since I am in Germany. This has made some of the US company centric certs or certs by US universities largely impossible or unwise for me.

In case any more context is needed for recommendation:

Spoiler

I am working with databases at work, specifically supporting and developing in Oracle Apex; this means especially in the coming weeks, I have enough opportunities to practice and further learn MySQL, HTML, CSS and some Javascript. I am also learning Python, but I think I have good resources for that at this point. I am looking to branch out though, especially because I am looking to switch employers and some I am eyeing would appreciate experience in the above mentioned topics.

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[Melooon]

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) is prob the gold standard for online programming courses. However it’s now so ridiculously expensive I would only recommend it if you’re planning to treat it like a full-time course you work on every day. However! They do offer 1 month free, so if you wanted to cram for a month it’s a great choice.

I have used it in the past when it was much cheaper and when my university gave me a subscription. You still need to practise obvs, but it gives great foundation knowledge. The courses are very polished and enjoyable, and they are certified (though I dunno how)

Docker is easy! Get yourself a basic VPS (I’m a fan of DigitalOcean they have amazing tutorials on everything about running servers) and try hosting some docker apps of your own! Break them, fix them try and use it! That’s the best way to find your workflow and you’ll get your own web app hosting out of it!

However on the point of certifications.. most companies really don’t care about those - if they have a choice between someone with a bunch of supposed certs and someone with an active GitHub full of passion projects with code they can actually see, they will always pick the person with the GitHub 

[shevek]

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) is prob the gold standard for online programming courses. However it’s now so ridiculously expensive I would only recommend it if you’re planning to treat it like a full-time course you work on every day. However! They do offer 1 month free, so if you wanted to cram for a month it’s a great choice.

Thank you, this looks promising. I will look into it, even just 1 free month can be super helpful and I hadn't heard of it before.

Docker is easy! Get yourself a basic VPS (I’m a fan of DigitalOcean they have amazing tutorials on everything about running servers) and try hosting some docker apps of your own! Break them, fix them try and use it! That’s the best way to find your workflow and you’ll get your own web app hosting out of it!

Ohh, that's interesting. Might worth a try.

However on the point of certifications.. most companies really don’t care about those - if they have a choice between someone with a bunch of supposed certs and someone with an active GitHub full of passion projects with code they can actually see, they will always pick the person with the GitHub 

That's true, and having your own passion projects is so much better for learning the stuff than just a theoretical class and a project you force yourself to do.

Honestly, my initial planned timeline was to stay at my current employer until my degree is done, which will still take around 5 years, and during that time learn stuff at my own pace and fill my Github with my own projects. During that time, get some certs here and there that are sensible, and then be ready to switch.
However, despite a lot of support from some of my coworkers and especially my superior and her boss, there are aspects of my work that make it hard to stay there now. It's reaching a critical level pretty quickly and there is no chance it will change in the foreseeable future - some people are hard to reprimand for their behavior and are unfireable. I'm looking to get out before the end of the year now for my own wellbeing and career development, but I am also not looking to accidentally switch into a worse fit either and it's not yet bad enough to stop being picky.

So I have to speedrun this somehow. next to fulltime work and my law degree. Many positions I am eye-ing thankfully ask for people they can still train and send to seminars, so if I can show I have the basics and I am motivated, that's already a plus. I have a plan for the next few months at work that will hopefully give me a few more skills and stuff to showcase as well.

[Gans]

Just polish the source code of your HTML page, make sure to understand every bit of it, put it as a long list in your CV, say you do this in your free time.
And then, they'll say, oh, you're into computers and taught this all by yourself? You have the "hands-on-mentality"! You're hired!

(I did something similar with source code of my computer game and it went rather well.)

Also, consider a low-tier entry to the field. Mustn't be a bad company at all, but it's easier to get the foot in the door. Plenty of companies have no option to reject people, who don't have all those certificates. Computers failing is sooooo unfun, they even discovered this in Germany (where certificates are regared extremly high, but out of necessity, that will fall apart sooner than later).

Computers still are black magic to most people. To be honest, everyone on this message board could work in IT.

Good luck and good strengh. You'll lose very often in this game. But eventually, you'll win.

[shevek]

Just polish the source code of your HTML page, make sure to understand every bit of it, put it as a long list in your CV, say you do this in your free time.
And then, they'll say, oh, you're into computers and taught this all by yourself? You have the "hands-on-mentality"! You're hired!

I did consider this but it's also a bit scary to put this private project out there. But: A good thing is that I recently already made plans for a separate page to be more of a "suitable for applications" website with a cool, terminal-style concept. I think I will go through with that and follow what you said I also have a bigger project for the SteamDeck coming that is a passion project while also being good to showcase on Github. I started working on it today.

Also, consider a low-tier entry to the field. Mustn't be a bad company at all, but it's easier to get the foot in the door.

Oh definitely! I am not nearly good enough for anything higher than that. What I trained for and what I currently work is a mix of the usual office administration and the more IT based database stuff, so a full transition into full coding and leaving simple data entry behind is a new thing and I need to start at the bottom.  Especially now with the recession and cutting costs everywhere, a lot of positions are not newbie friendly and they're searching for senior developers or AI specialists, and that's not something I can serve for years or ever

Computers failing is sooooo unfun, they even discovered this in Germany (where certificates are regarded extremely high, but out of necessity, that will fall apart sooner than later).

I hope that will be the case. The rigidity of certificates and other pieces of papers, like of degrees etc, is annoying to me. I am capable of a lot more, but held back by the strict hierarchy of income groups based on attained level of education. I am already working on the max level that is attainable to me, so for anything more, I need the Bachelor, at least in the public sector. It sucks that you can increase your skills on the job or in private but it will never be reflected in your income because of the fixed income group your job posting is tied to that you can't negotiate. Also a reason why I now also consider the private sector in my searching.

Good luck and good strength. You'll lose very often in this game. But eventually, you'll win.

Thank you!

[Gans]

It sucks that you can increase your skills on the job or in private but it will never be reflected in your income because of the fixed income group your job posting is tied to that you can't negotiate.

You can rely 100% on the market to decide that. If there is a shortage of workers, the payment has to raise (if exploited by the workers of course). Some will dare to vote you down on missing papers, but I can say, that other bosses are out there who are incredibly desperate to get an IT person, they'll kiss your feet, if you know what I mean.

However the public sector is biased indeed (if millions of working people pay for their mistakes, they can afford lots of bad decisions). Although with good contacts, you can make it there too, even without all the papers. If the public sector is the goal, you could look out for those, who are the second row behind their service. For example the hotline callcenters, which are outsourced to a callcenter. So a private company which deals mainly with public stuff. Or the printer company that sets up the printers in the town hall for example.

[shevek]

If the public sector is the goal,

I'll go whereever it is as good as now in regards to pay and benefits, or better; though honestly, I am probably ready to leave the public sector. It's not dire, so I made plans to build one last project to help my CV and "the cause" in the future and then I am hopefully gone. The public sector suffers from a lot of things, and imo one of them, it is a safe haven for people who would have been fired otherwise. Some people will act like a total ass because they know there will be no consequences except being moved around in-house.

But anyway, thank you all for the help and encouraging advice I've made a battle plan and it will probably take me 12-24 months, but that's fine. Feel free to post additional fitting resources, of course, especially because it can help others too.