Should I take a certification?
It depends, as many times, but I give you a guide so you can take the right decision for your case
A colleague from work asked me the other day:
Marcos, I was thinking to take an AWS certification. What you would recommend me?
What Iโm going to tell you in this email is the summary I gave to this person.
As happens on many occasions, it depends. You are lucky because I can give for first-hand advice based on what you really want to achieve.
In todayโs email, I provide a guideline to help you determine if you need to pursue the certification you have in mind or if you just need something else.
In my personal experience, I got the CDAK training from the Linux Foundation, and they were good in general. Part of it that training was the โContainers Fundamentals Courseโ, for which I wrote an email about this. You can read it down here ๐๐ป
But I did not jump into the certification exam. Why? Because my goal was knowledge, not the certificate. Iโve been working with Kubernetes for the last 10 years, which has helped me reach where I wanted to go.
โ๐ผ Here is the important part of todayโs email:
If your goal is to become an expert, just learn as much as you can and work on that on a daily basis.
If the certificate will give you some benefit, like a promotion, job position, or similar, then go for the certification.
So, ask yourself at this point:
What I really want?
From there, I give you 2 paths.
๐ง๐ฝ The Expert Path
If you like technology and what you want to do is become an expert, I have some news for you:
๐๐ผ You donโt need to pass the certificate exam to become an expert in a technology; what you need is:
Knowledge.
Practice.
Those 2 points, ideally, in parallel.
The knowledge you can get through:
Official/unofficial trainings.
Technical mentoring from a peer.
Working every single day with that technology.
The best experts I found in my career (on AWS or Kubernetes) worked every day on the technology for 2 or 3 years.
Did you expect something more complex than that?
๐ฎ The Certificate Path
The certificate gives you a paper that helps others to target you as an expert in a field. From there, you have to perform based on the level of expertise expected, based on the paper.
๐๐ผ Preparing for the certification exam is not exactly about getting the knowledge about the technology. And this is an important difference. Preparing for a certification exam means:
Of course, you have learn something about the technology during the official (and not official) trainings.
But the most important part is practice with real exams.
Thatโs the thing you should focus on if your choice is the certification exam.
Will the preparation for the certification exam give me knowledge? Yes, but for sure not to be an expert, because (letโs be realistic) you focus on passing the exam only.
In my case, I took training on AWS and Kubernetes. In case you want to know some important trainings I got and that helped me to level up in my knowledge and career in the technical path, reply to this email or drop me a new one ๐๐ป
โจ My advice for you
๐ข If, for any reason, the certification stamp will open an opportunity in your current or future company:
๐๐ผ go for it.
Prepare for the exam and jump into it. Money is money, and we need it for life.
๐ข If your goal is learning or becoming an expert:
๐๐ผ Go through the AWS/CDAK/whatever labs and learn by practicing.
๐๐ผ Find a job position where you work every single day with the stack you like.
Thanks for your support and feedback, I really appreciate it!
Youโre the best! ๐๐ผ
๐๐ง ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ซ๐ฐ๐บ๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ด๐ต, ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ค๐ญ๐ช๐ค๐ฌ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐. ๐๐ต ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฑ๐ด!
๐๐ง ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ฌ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ด๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ช๐ญ๐ญ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ง๐ช๐ต ๐ง๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด, โป๏ธ ๐ด๐ฉ๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด