As I'm getting a bit old (mid 40s) I'm thinking about getting an AWS certification in order to bump up my employability and better my standing in job market.<p>I'm wondering though if there's any tangible connection between the two. What has been your experience with these and similar certifications?
AWS certifications <i>from AWS</i> are reasonably legit.<p>That said, <i>most</i> certifications are a <i>negative</i> indicator of competence. This is supported by direct experience and research studies.<p>At the prior 3 institutions I was CTO, we routinely screened out resumes with a laundry list of certifications before even speaking to candidates.<p>Note this is not about <i>having</i> certifications, it’s about mediocre candidates attempting to signal competence on the resume by listing a pile of cert-mill nonsense. The negative correlation is so high, when hiring at scale just toss the ones with certs (but give recruiters a list of exceptions, e.g., AWS, CNCF, etc.).<p>// Again, there are exceptions, and AWS first party certifications are among them.
I very positively favor engineers who took AWS certifications.<p>Even the most basic Solutions Associate means I can trust that you at least know what I mean when I say 'SQS', 'KMS' and 'ECS'.<p>I prefer every engineer at least have foundational knowledge of AWS. We use IaC to template out everything and put 'training wheels' on our infra, meaning engineers might not spend a ton of time in AWS, the real benefit is in communication. Especially since I want engineers to feel confident to use our IaC to build solutions that scale and discuss how it could better suit the engineering teams needs, rather than just having an 'OPs team' drive application decisions.
As a hiring manager, the certs are ok, but the experience is what matters.<p>I always ask engineers this "What do you think about the AWS documentation?"
If you've had to actually parse through it yourself to learn how to get something working, that's more valuable.
It really depends on where you want to work. If you want to work at a large organization, I really recommend it. Thing big blue and such. A lot of their government and f-500 contracts are with entities that have contracts which state, "all our employees/contractors are certified."<p>I have been told by recruiters they can easily double most people's salary, this is for AZ-204/400 certs.
In UK context, many job ads for DevOps/Platform/SRE/Cloud roles will ask for AWS SAA if AWS is being used. I see other certs listed far less, whether AWS or otherwise. AWS SAA does seem to be the best value one in this sense. I'm currently working on AWS SAP.and wondering if there is any point tbh as I hardly ever see on job ads.<p>The AWS SysOps Associate exam is actually far more rigorous - questions are harder IMHO and it has a lab now so I would personally view someone holding that more favourably.<p>All clouds have partner programmes (mostly agency consultants) where status is partly linked to number of certified staff at different levels. For AWS specialty certs count same as professional in partner programme so for AWS partners they should just get them to do the easy AWS specialties like security instead of SAP.<p>I think the certs just help to get CV in front of people, they won't help much after that.
I have 6 certs, earned over almost 30 years in the business.<p>They used to be flashy, eye-catching perhaps.<p>Now… I would say they don't mean much.<p>Knowledge? Experience? NOW we're talkin.<p>As one other comment suggests, they help you get vendor status… but if you don't have the requisite knowledge to back up the paper, they're not worth the paper they're printed on.
I was doing aws for years before I sat the solutions architect exam. I learned a lot and would recommend it to anyone operating in the space. I hire and having that cert goes a long way towards showing you know your way around AWS.
For me getting an AWS cert before I started job hopping helped in my confidence. It cost time to learn the material but I felt more confident that I had knowledge of the cloud platform. Doing a cert also exposes you to a wider arrange of services than what you'd normally use if you were trying to build something and ship it out the door. A cert will never replace or exceed real world xp in value tho
My certifications led directly to getting my first job in tech. And there are AWS partners and other companies which require a certain percentage of their workforce be AWS certified. I think AWS certs are valuable.
I think it can only help. Employability aside, you might even enjoy doing them! The AWS certs aren't to be sniffed at, even if your experience after completing it is only theoretical (better than nothing).
YOu can get the certs by studying and doing quizzes on the online learning platforms.<p>You probably want to get hands-on experience and put stuff up on Github if you actually want it to make a difference.