What I would do is get a lot of experience with a lot of different systems.
If you’re enjoying self hosting and setting stuff up, go to something like TurnKey Linux and download a handful of applications that you’re interested in using.
Spin up virtual servers on a proxmox server, install the turnkey Linux systems, and then learn how they work. Get ldap running on your home network. Set up an nginx reverse proxy and get a certificate so that you can go to a duckdns internal name spaces instead of IP addresses.
Find use cases for your home network system and then find how to make the systems you have available work for those use cases.
And for the love of god, find yourself a cheap Windows server license and virtualize one of those and integrate it into the mix.
Host a WordPress or Joomla on IIS, set up a pihole for your home DNS on Ubuntu server.
Run a jellyfin server and download a bunch of public domain movies to it.
Hello, find yourself some Kiwix images that you like and figure out how to get https and nginx names running on them.
The more you play around with the technology, the more you’ll find out what you like doing and what you don’t like doing and what you’re good at and what you’re not good at and that will help you understand where you fit and wear your talents lie.
Once you know that I’m sure you can put those talents to use for gainful employment.
I don’t know what normal people do but people like me don’t see ads because they use the appropriate protections from the invasiveness of the internet.
Pihole. Firefox. ublock origin, privacy badger, decentraleyes…
It also helps if you don’t participate in systems that attempt to intrusively shove ads down your throat, but you do you.