there are many companies and roles which require you to show the actual number of users, or the load of the service that you worked on. I got my first

there are many companies and roles which require you to show the actual number of users, or the load of the service that you worked on. I got my first job as a programmer in 2001 and not once was I asked that. I'm sure they exist but I wouldn't count on that being so common as to significantly impact the OP's career prospects. Two things I've most often noticed people care about when hiring: 1. experience with the exact tech / field that they're hiring for 2. having brand-name job experience (google, amazon, etc). It's sad but you'll probably get better mileage from having worked on a useless prestige/pet project at google using fashionable tech than a critical system written with JavaEE & serving a lot of high-value customers at Alliance Generic Insurance Services Corp.