Seriously, stop with the certificates. No one cares. If you are a dev ops engineer then by all means, get AWS certs or whatever your team requires. For the rest of you JavaScript developers out there - just stop. Learning how to deploy, roll back and automate code going from your machine out to the world is an actual skill. You can 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗚𝗶𝘁𝗛𝘂𝗯 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗔𝗪𝗦. Think through how you would rollback the code if an error happened. - How will you monitor the deployment? - What the hell does a "rollback" even mean? - What git branching strategies make sense for your team? 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝟭 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲? Googling those 3 questions should lead you down some interesting rabbit holes.
Corrie Stroup
3mo
I mean, anyone using their cert as their only qualification, sure. But, if you're serious about learning something, it does feel good to have a solid 'end goal' piece of paper, even if it doesn't wield much power. Back when I was a teacher, I loved picking up the PD cert at the end of a meaningful PD. It was a nice reminder to me of what I learned and what I needed to integrate into my lessons. Of course, if I went to some prospective employer and pushed my certs before my experience/skill/degree, they would've laughed at me. I think it's great to encourage people to get certs, as long as they're aware that it's the skills, not the paper, that will help them be employable. (Also, not spending a fortune on some cert they think is going to be 'the one missing piece that will allow them to get a job'.)
Abby Waddell
3mo
It’s very overwhelming to jump into a brand new (to you) field and learn everything that you need to know. I believe certs provide a good general guideline for what you should learn, and when you should learn it in order to to get you up and running. It takes what feels like an overwhelming task and breaks it down into digestible parts. They encourage people to sit down after a full day of work and say “Okay! I’m finishing this section today”, and leaves people feeling accomplished. I believe certs are good if you need that psychological push, but unfortunately you’re right. No one cares. Go build things people!!
I don’t understand the negativity behind this post. Why not just be kind? They don’t make or break a profile but they can be a nuanced separator in a hiring decision, plus some people feel really good by earning a milestone and sharing. Let them enjoy the accomplishments.
Hosam Kyali
3mo
Well l agree with your logic,but who tell the companies that keep require you to be certified while ignoring your main skills
Matthew Yaeger
3mo
I understand your perspective, but studying for certs can help the unacquainted become familiar with the ideas they need to be thinking about. And this is coming from somebody who champions the idea of learning by doing Certs can provide a person an overview of the state of a topic so that they have a foundation to base their decisions on when they get to the “doing” part. As the saying goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Steven Hemmy
3mo
One thing: Recruiters seem to like cloud platform certs at least (not hiring managers so much, bc they tend to know they don't prove much talent-wise). Not all certs are created equal. I felt the same as you and never bothered with them. I got my AWS SA cert last month purely because it was a corporate policy for all engineers for my new gig... but I saw a *significant* uptick in recruiter emails/inmail as soon as it was on my profile. I think at the very least they show you're at least somewhat engaged in upskilling/developing your career. Though I do still think they're nearly meaningless typically as far as concrete skills are concerned, they very well might be the edge that gets you that initial contact. Think of them as a self-marketing tool moreso than actual proof of anything. Just don't replace actual learning/building with them. Putting food in brown cardboard and labeling it "Natural" with green detailing doesn't actually change the product, but you might be able to charge a small premium for it. ;)
Garrett Stewart
3mo
What does a certificate provide? It provides you with hours of education on a subject, correct? But at the end of those hours of education, and project building, and tutorials... you have a thing that says "Yep, they completed it, they did X amount of hours on this subject". So, why is a certificate a bad thing again? And why do dev ops engineers get a pass to get an AWS cert, but someone learning a new programming language isn't allowed?
I agree to a point but being comfortable with AWS takes time and patience. Learning github actions depends on understanding the concepts behind version control and CI/CD as well as deployment. This is becoming an essential part of software development the coding is the easy part getting your code into the environment and multiple environments is challenging. Testing and refining the code is another important step as well. Until I was actually part of a development team. I didn’t understand all the importance of all this. certificates can help with the knowledge and understanding the concepts.
Full-stack software engineer with 12 years of professional experience. I build modern web apps using Node.js, React, and TypeScript.
3moAgreed. Your FreeCodeCamp completion cert isn't going to land you your next job. Learn the real skills you're going to use in the day-to-day.