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.
Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
21–30 of 39 posts
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#22Honestly 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 tend to be skeptical of a resume heavy in certifications, but if there’s real experience and a display of competence seeing AWS solutions architect certification is a plus not a minus.
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#23I 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?
If my environment is AWS and someone has experience with GCP I’ll pass in favor of someone who knows AWS. The concepts are the same but the day to day is quite different.
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#24As 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.
>What do you think about the AWS documentation? Is "I only ever get things done by reading third-part AWS documentation" a valid answer in your book? :c)
Compare and contrast with GCP documentation.
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#25AWS certifications from AWS are reasonably legit.
That said, most certifications are a negative indicator of competence. This is supported by direct experience and research studies.
At the prior 3 institutions I was CTO, we routinely screened out resumes with a laundry list of certifications before even speaking to candidates.
Note this is not about having 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.).
// Again, there are exceptions, and AWS first party certifications are among them.
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#26Honestly 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.
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#27Honestly 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
Years ago, I used some personal projects and a database certification to make some desired job changes. I advise any person to leverage both training (traditional education, certification, etc) along with a demonstrable portfolio of work to do the same. Even now, I occasionally do a MOOC and earn the certificate just for personal interest.
I hope hiring orgs don't run away from candidates simply because they undertook a certification. But I understand the caution - my org has had bad experiences with coursework-only MS in computer science career changers who turned out to not have any real skills and maybe not even any desire to learn any real skills.
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#28In 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.
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.
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.
I think the certs just help to get CV in front of people, they won't help much after that.
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#29My 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.
Re: Ask HN: Cloud certifications and job prospects. Is there a real connection?
#30Earlier 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…
exactly