Forget job boards: Brad's DevOps recruiter magnet

Mischa van den Burg

👑

⭐

🔥

4d • 💬 General discussion

Forget job boards: Brad's DevOps recruiter magnet

Brad just landed a Junior SRE role with a 40% pay bump in about six weeks.

Not because of a degree or pricey certs.

Because he made his skills undeniable and easy to find.

“There is literally no way any of this would have been possible without the KubeCraft community and Mischa’s wisdom.”

Apply for KubeCraft (limited spots) → CLICK HERE

Here’s exactly what Brad did and why it worked:

The “Paper Airplane” Problem

Brad started like most job seekers.

He used the big job sites: Indeed, Reed, Glassdoor.

His exact words: “It was like folding my CV into a paper airplane and throwing it into the wind.”

The shift: He moved to LinkedIn and built connections strategically.

The result: At 350+ connections, he got 2-3 recruiter calls every week.

Why this worked:

Recruiters use LinkedIn to find active candidates. Traditional job boards are passive applications competing with hundreds of others.

The Homelab Strategy

Brad built a Kubernetes homelab running on k3s VMs.

Not because it was required for his current job.

Because he knew cloud-native was the future due to AI growth.

Here’s what happened in interviews:

Round 1: They liked his OpenTelemetry experience + homelab Kubernetes practice
Round 2-4: Every call discussed his homelab setup
Topics covered: Kustomize, external-secrets, Azure vs AWS comparisons, improvement plans

The magic: Interviews stopped being technical quizzes and became technical conversations.

Brad could explain his architectural choices and reasoning.

The Strategic Application Formula

Brad didn’t spray applications everywhere.

When he found his target role on LinkedIn, the spec jumped off the page: AWS, Kubernetes, Rails, Prometheus, Grafana.

Perfect match for his homelab stack.

Interview process: 4 rounds over 1.5 months

- 30-minute screening (technical + homelab discussion)- 3 x 1-hour interviews (client communication + technical background)

The feedback: They liked his conversation skills for client communication + his technical work showed ability to learn their stack quickly.

What Made Brad Different

Two key differentiators:

Soft skills: He could handle client pressure during outages
Learning demonstration: His homelab proved he could master their tech stack

The combination of technical competence + communication skills is rare.

Most engineers focus only on technical skills.

Brad developed both through:

- Systems support role (client-facing pressure situations)

- Homelab projects (technical depth + architectural thinking)

- Soft skills training + interview prep in KubeCraft

The KubeCraft Multiplier

Brad credits the KubeCraft Career Accelerator as essential to his success.

His exact words:

“There is literally no way any of this would have been possible without the KubeCraft community and Mischa’s wisdom.”

What made the difference:

“From the gold dust in the homelab, making sure I’m efficiently coding with config management, ensuring I retain the information with the Obsidian Zettelkasten note taking method, and getting my foot in the door with a well-rounded LinkedIn profile and CV. It’s harmoniously perfect.”

Brad’s advice to others:

“For anyone on the fence seriously considering joining KubeCraft: Do it. If you want modern cloud native jobs, whether it be DevOps, Platform, SRE, Cloud… The formula is the same.”

“The knowledge, wisdom and resources are all there, you just have to stay a while, and listen.”

Get Brad’s advantage

Inside KubeCraft Career Accelerator you’ll implement: