Intersectionality and positionality can be used to examine how various aspects of identity are analyzed in the context of learners' lived experiences. When examining how learners are recognized for their skills and competencies, there are several ways in which education and credentials can be leveraged. Autoethnographies were used to examine the lived experience of how the authors used micro-credentials and digital badges to verify skills that were unrecognized in traditional contexts. Lessons from these lived experiences will be derived from a co-reflection process. Further, these lessons will be used to provide suggestions for how learning ecologies can be designed to support historically and systematically excluded learners with ways to have their skills recognized and verified.