While I think the complaint above is a little over the top, the sentence you quote is a solitary fleck of personality in a sea of boilerplate.

"..which fulfills my lifelong ambition of..."

OP is probably referring to this tired, cliched turn of phrase (among other examples in the blog).

I read this as a tongue in cheek joke?

That’s right, it is tongue-in-cheek, and a stereotypical way of doing so.

I don't really think it's virtue signaling. "Virtue signaling" is itself an extremely tired cliche/accusation. To me it feels more like stock "relatability signaling", which gives me a similarly unctuous feeling. Kind of the nerd-corporatespeak version of "hello, fellow kids".

A lighthearted phrase, at worst. Are we not allowed to express ourselves except for the dryest, most information-dense prose?