Passing 10x GCP certifications: A return on experience (Part 2: Why)
I recently passed successfully 10 GCP certifications. This article in 3 parts will try to give insights on
- Part1 How: What is the process of preparing and passing the certifications
- Part 2 Why: What is the interest of passing them
- Part 3 What: List of learnings I found interesting about GCP
In this part, I will try to answer the WHY and list the reasons why it makes sense to pass one or multiple GCP certifications.
Table of Contents
· Learning about GCP and the cloud
∘ Learning about GCP
∘ Tick-tock of the manager
∘ Learning about best practices
· Why 10 certification?
· Professional interest
∘ Evaluating the value of certifications for a hiring manager
∘ Passing the initial CV screening
· Final thoughts
Learning about GCP and the cloud
Learning about GCP
The real reason I passed so many certifications is actually because I wanted to learn as much as possible about a hyperscaler. I already had experience in GCP/Azure/AWS with a big bias for GCP. My goal was to go through most videos, labs, quizzes in order to have a deep level of understanding of GCP, hands-on, and the “definition of done” of my learning for a subject was: I passed the exam and got the certification. I didn’t need the certification in itself but it was a motivation goal, something to push myself to achieve the learnings, to not stop mid-journey.
I have learned a lot with every certification, being about the networking part, the security part, the developer part, or any of the others. Even if you don’t want to go up to the certifications, following the courses is really worth it. Give it a try. I bet you will get hooked.
Tick-tock of the manager
Also I have been a director of Devops/SRE for quite some time and I’m a big believer of the tick-tock of the manager, which consists in alternating more executive/managerial and more tech oriented focuses, in order to remain relevant, complete in this always changing ecosystem. I stole the expression from Intel, doing the tick-tock model for their chips, where every “tick” represented the shrinking of the process technology of the previous architecture, and every “tock” designated a new microarchitecture.
In the beginning of my career, having spent a long time hands-on as a developer or a dev team leader, I used the opportunity of a time-off to do a “tock” (an MBA), in order to expand my understanding of how a company is operating. Now that I have been managing departments and teams (still being hands-on though), I used the opportunity of a time-off to do a “tick” (deeper expertise in GCP) and improve my ability to design/scale/secure/automate cloud infrastructures or at least understand how to build and manage “cloud native” teams and projects better.
So, even for tech managers, I think it makes sense to try it.
Learning about best practices
The courses are filled with best practices. And the exams make sure you assimilated them. Best practices are, in fact, applicable to any cloud environments.
Here are a few examples:
Why 10 certification?
Each certification is about a specific area of specialisation in a dev/devops team. None are optional in real life. The more you learn and pass certifications, the more complete you are. The better your understanding of a cloud system is. In absolutely every SaaS project, you need architecture designing, networking , security, databases, development, devops processes, data engineering, and now machine learning. Don’t you? Good news! They are all certifications that you can pass.
https://cloud.google.com/learn/certification?hl=en
Fortunately, when you pass one, it gets really easier to pass others. You get used to the process. You get used to the cloud concepts. You understand better the so-specific GCP philosophy. And quite some courses are, in fact, shared between the different learning paths.
The first one is the most stressful/difficult. Then it just flows if you push a bit more.
Professional interest
Evaluating the value of certifications for a hiring manager
Another goal I had in passing the certifications was to understand their value. GCP certifications are known to test not only the knowledge but also to test your ability to solve hard real life cases. Anybody that passed a Google professional certification (even associate actually) will get my attention when hiring Dev/SRE/Devops, even if the certification is not directly related to my current need. It means the person can
- Set self-improvement goals
- Jump and persist into the learning process
- Understand up to date cloud concepts
- Has enough thinking ability to solve real life problems
I understand now how much listing a certification on a CV, at least a Google one, is a proof of knowledge and ability. I swear, if I see one on a CV, it immediately passes on the fast lane of my recruiting pipeline.
Note: I am talking about GCP certifications only here, obtained after passing an exam. Some others might not be as complicated to pass. And I am of course not talking here about certifications of completion given by various course factories without serious final exam, that anybody can play in the background while playing Fortnite, then advertise on Linkedin. Not every certification has the same value
Passing the initial CV screening
When I had to hire somebody, I have always insisted in doing the initial selection of CVs by myself but quite often, it seems that this task is not done by the hiring manager, but by a recruiter who has a list of requirements for the job.
For the younger ones, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a recruiter for a second. As a recruiter, you usually can see passing thousands of CVs for a position. By experience, the recruiter has first 2 main concerns that needs to be answered in the less than 2 seconds during which he will scan your CV:
- Does his experience seem to match with the requirements of the position?
- And more importantly, what was his implication in the tech and projects that are listed in the CVs? Was this person really a builder or did he just happen to be around while the work happened. Let’s be honest here. The 2nd case is the most widespread in the CVs. And the recruiter is searching for hints that would allow him and his clients teams to invest and loose the less time in calls.
- Then, the recruiter will need to check during a screening call if the person is a decent human being (honest, positive, energetic, collaborative, will fit in the teams), and if the compensation expectations fit the budget.
- Then, very probably, the CV will be passed to the hiring manager or an internal team that will have the same concerns and will decide if they go further and proceed to do a tech check on the selected candidates.
Do you see here what is the interest of listing one or multiple certs on your CV, given of course that they have a certain value, like the GCP ones. You might give the nudge of confidence that the initial screener badly needs.
You can take ownership of your narrative and help the recruiter.
Final thoughts
I believe that are a lot of different reasons why you could pass GCP certifications. Depending on what you are searching for, it can make sense
- for learning about GCP, its specific design, its services, its strengths.
- for learning about best practices in general and raising your ability to build right
- or as a proof of knowledge/ability
But first of all, it’s a fun process. You should just give it a try.
The next part of this blog post will be about what I learned in the process. And there are quite some learnings that surprised me. Stay tuned for the third part.
