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Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

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Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#31

Post by mountainriver »

primax wrote: post #13
jpitz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's frankly a fascinating response. I have certs because my boss asked me to get them, as they play a part in his business' ability to obtain partner status with the various cloud vendors. It is confusing to me that this chain of events would lead you to dismiss me out of hand, or make value judgements about what type of person I am.

I've heard that comment once or twice but never from someone who actually has experience hiring people

lol I'm a principal engineer now and previously and EM with tons of hiring experience

Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#32

Post by mountainriver »

dc-programmer wrote: post #26
mountainriver wrote: post #7

Honestly if I see a cert I run the other direction. To me it speaks to the type of person, I would much rather see open source or just experience

I see how people come to adopt this perspective. However, because so many tech workers appear ambivalent about their job and tech in general, any signal indicating effort to take control of their career direction is positive. Every member of a software team does not need to super star autodidact. In a lot of cases it would actually be counterproductive to have such a composition.

Thats a fair point, showing some level of effort is better than none. I generally want teams with just a few rockstars than a bunch of decent engineers. I've just found them to output far more at higher quality.

Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#33

Post by dimmke »

mountainriver wrote: post #31
primax wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that comment once or twice but never from someone who actually has experience hiring people

lol I'm a principal engineer now and previously and EM with tons of hiring experience

This makes me curious. I have 3 AWS certs, that I was required to get because I work for Amazon. I put them on my LinkedIn (I'm proud of them, they were hard to get) but haven't considered putting them on my resume. Are they really that bad that I should consider removing them from LinkedIn too?

Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#34

Post by mountainriver »

dimmke wrote: post #33
mountainriver wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol I'm a principal engineer now and previously and EM with tons of hiring experience

This makes me curious. I have 3 AWS certs, that I was required to get because I work for Amazon. I put them on my LinkedIn (I'm proud of them, they were hard to get) but haven't considered putting them on my resume. Are they really that bad that I should consider removing them from LinkedIn too?

I mean I'm just one guy with an opinion. I see them sort of in the same vein as CompTIA, and I prefer to hire people that think on their feet and can solve problems quickly using whatever skills may be required for the task.

So generally I'm looking for creative problem solvers that do open source work and learn as they go on their own. I've just seen over my career that people who play the cert game are usually on the other end of this spectrum. I'm obviously painting in broad strokes here

How I build teams has worked really well for me, but there are lots of great ways of building teams that create value which are likely very different from mine.

Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#35

Post by antisthenes »

mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #15
jpitz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's frankly a fascinating response. I have certs because my boss asked me to get them, as they play a part in his business' ability to obtain partner status with the various cloud vendors. It is confusing to me that this chain of events would lead you to dismiss me out of hand, or make value judgements about what type of person I am.

> It is confusing to me that this chain of events would lead you to dismiss me out of hand, or make value judgements about what type of person I am. I don't think he's making value judgements based on the fact that you have certs, but rather based on the fact that you choose to put certs on your resume over something else, like an open source project. When people write their resumes they usually need to cut out thing…

Certs take a single line on a resume.

Sometimes people don't have the pedigree or the opportunity to prove themselves in a high value position, so certs is the only thing available to signal competence.

The fact that many people (in this thread) look down on it is directly responsible for putting a glass ceiling over some people and reducing upward mobility. It's just bad judgment.

I mean it's one thing to require them to do a skill test, but to outright filter them or toss their resumes in the bin is unequivocally shitty.

Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#36

Post by drpyser22 »

danwee wrote: post #18
jpitz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's frankly a fascinating response. I have certs because my boss asked me to get them, as they play a part in his business' ability to obtain partner status with the various cloud vendors. It is confusing to me that this chain of events would lead you to dismiss me out of hand, or make value judgements about what type of person I am.

It's not about having them, it's about putting them on your Linkedin/CV. I have read tons of tech books (many of them way better than certificates on the same topics). I do not list them on my Linkedin/CV.

What if you haven't worked with AWS, but managed to get an AWS cert as stand-in to get you a chance at a job which relies on AWS?

Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#37

Post by bearjaws »

Bilal_io wrote: post #9
bearjaws wrote: post #6

I very positively favor engineers who took AWS certifications. 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'. 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 com…

I know AWS is the most used cloud platform among the many out there. But wouldn't you be missing on really talented people that have only worked on Azure or Google Cloud for say 10 years? Or is it the expectation that any OPs engineer should know the fundamentals of all the big players?

GCP and Azure is fine, although I hope they would take the time to learn AWS lingo.

Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#38

Post by nikau »

shyn3 wrote: post #8

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." I have been told by recruiters they can easily double most people's salary, this is for AZ-204/400 certs.

The AZ-900 exam reminded me of the Simpsons episode, "Pepsi? Partial credit!"

Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?

#39

Post by hazmazlaz »

clowen wrote: post #2

As a hiring manager, the certs are ok, but the experience is what matters. 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.

Honestly compared to all other cloud platforms I've used I find AWS documentation to be amazing. I use AWS all day every day in my job and the only resource I've needed 95% of the time is the AWS docs. It's my first and last stop mostly.
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