[marcosdumay]

Yeah, that's the answer (it's a shame it's currently so low), but I don't think it's in terms the OP will be able to relate to. I'm sure he can achieve all of those examples already.

So I'll try to refine it.

The main reason an organization uses Jenkins or Chief instead of in-house code is because they can just post job positions requiring knowledge on Jenkins or Chief, instead of minutely describing the person's tasks and training newcomers on their internal tools.

So, yeah, those tools do lots of desirable things. And slightly simplify a huge number of tasks. But the main reason one won't find a job without some experience with them is that they act a lot like competence standards on the job market.

And yeah, for a job seeker it does look a lot like they are bullshit. (And they often are - Jenkins and Chief not so much, but others are a lot.) The OP's question is a lot like "why should I learn standard calculus notation if I can calculate everything just fine on my own notation?", and if you replace that with stuff like type theory you will find people actually asking that question. The answer is always the same, it's because you need it to communicate with other people.

[pixl97]

>it's because you need it to communicate with other people.

Yep. Chances are if they use Jenkins, they'll have some vendor plugins for tools they use. Jenkins will download xml/json from the one plugin and upload it to another. Now those systems are coupled via a format and a set of behaviors around it. For a huge portion of corporate users those plugins remove a huge chunk of work they'd have to do internally, and instead of writing something from scratch, they can extend what is already there.

[jumbojax]

Your calculus analogy has me thinking that I may just haven't encountered some pain points where being able to apply certain things that will improve my quality of work. Especially in regards of being a better communicator to be more effective team member, and employee. I also tend to work in silo'd situations.

I mean, I always encounter problems at work, just not the right ones to get me to where I want to be today.

And where I'm in a situation where I'm free to do side projects, it doesn't feel better. I can't effectively come up with new problem scenarios unless they resemble something I encountered in the past.