Been a techy since a kid, IT "professional" for 12+ years. In undergrad, I had a professor tell me something I will never forget for as long as I live...

"What I'm teaching you is 95% science (physics, electronic engineering theory, FFT, etc.) and 5% magic"

It's absolutely true that no matter how well you understand how and why something is working, there is still that absolutely small percentage of "holy shit, I can beam a picture of a cat across the entire planet in a fraction of a second while pooping".

If that isn't magic, I truly don't know what is.

Are the mods even active anymore? So many non-self hosting related questions....

Stop trying to bypass their security. It exists for a reason and bypassing it is typically a fireable offense.

Make nice with the IT guys and they might allow an exception, but try to circumvent them and you are bound to be more restricted, possibly losing local admin.

Both. It's a marketable skill...

"I created a custom CI/CD pipeline using F/OSS to host dozens of microservices in my home lab, ranging from X to Y, including setting up DNS, port forwarding, registering a domain name, setting up a reverse proxy and VPN, managing docker containers..."

I was able to use a similar pitch to prove I had the chops for a new role involving a lot more Devops stuff at work. I've never done devops for work, but I know the theory and have a minimum level of practice that someone only needs to explain a topic once or twice. Hands-on experience is invaluable