Why I Pursued an AWS Certification Exam 25 Years into my Career
Begin at the beginning
Early in my career as a developer, I passed a lot of Microsoft development-related certifications. They demonstrated I at least took the time to study and learn the material. Maybe I was just decent at taking tests. Having them on my resume never hurt though and I did learn from the exercise.
Much of my career has been spent working for a Microsoft partner organization. My certifications benefited those organizations too — it helps with their partnership obligations. I hold (or held) a host of Scrum.org certifications as well.
I won’t argue the efficacy of certifications or a correlation between great technologists and certifications. My experience has typically been the opposite in that heavily certified professionals aren’t necessarily the strongest.
Certifications seem to benefit the beginner as well as the extremely talented senior professional. Without a proven body of work, a certification signals to others a baseline competency for the novice. In contrast, the toughest certifications (Cisco CCIE, Red Hat RHCA, etc.) are so well-known and respected they set those professionals apart. For folks in the middle, certification may not be the best investment.