Do not waste your money on developer certifications
There is a special kind of product aimed at software developers — certifications. Whether it’s the programming language you’re coding in, the database you store your stuff in, or your favorite JS framework — you can get a certificate that proves you’re skilled in it. John Doe, a certified Whatever Developer — sounds like a point of pride, right?
Of course, it’s not free. Money needs to be spent. And before you go ahead with that, I encourage you to ask yourself some questions about it.
Do YOU really need that certificate?
The whole process of preparing yourself for the exam — learning, organizing your knowledge, watching Netflix — can provide you with… something, especially if you’ve never worked with the technology you want to be certified in. You might enjoy challenges, and the exam itself can be challenging (though sometimes it’s not). So, yeah, you… no, you don’t need it.
It might look nice on your LinkedIn profile, and your CV/Resume could be a little more attractive to an HR person who selects candidates from the company inbox you’ve applied to… However, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Your experience and skills will be evaluated anyway by some technical recruiter during the recruitment process.
The certification process can be stressful, especially the exam. Usually you’re taking it in your place, with web cam on, being watched/recorded all the time (no suspicious moves!). Sometimes you need to connect to some virtual environment (often for solving coding challenges) which can be lagged, and on top of that there’s a time pressure. And all this for just a ‘couple’ of bucks. Oh, and did I mention that these certificates usually have a limited validity period (2–3 years, sometimes even less)?
Well, it doesn’t sound like a good deal, does it? It comes with a significant cost, and as a developer, you don’t really gain much from it. However, these certifications are remarkably popular, indicating that there is a demand. The timeless law of economics says that there cannot be supply without demand. Where it comes from?
THEY want you to have it!
There is a special group of people that have no technical knowledge, and they will most likely choose services of company you’re working for over others when they encounter a problem with something if they will hear from a sales person — Our company have a developer certified in something. This group is commonly known as clients.
The story of birth of new certificate is always the same. Some developer becomes tired of how things are, so he creates open source something (language, framework, e-commerce system, whatever). Something proves to be good, gains popularity, is widely used in commercial projects by other companies, gets thousands of stars on GitHub, and fosters a quite large community. And suddenly a certification program for something appears.
It can go even deeper — Something inc. can introduce a “partner program”, and to get a partner status a company need to pay some amount of cash. Of course, a something partner should have a something certified developers (sometimes it’s required by partner program conditions) — prompting a company (a partner) to aim for those developers. Typically, by encouraging their employees to obtain certifications (and covering the exam costs for them).
In the end, it’s more about the marketing of the company you’re working for, having the opportunity to feature a slogan on their webpage such as: We are a Something Purple Partner, and we have Something Professional Certified Developers.
And as I mentioned before — even if you have something certificate and you apply to a company that’s seeking something developers — I doubt that certificate is a key factor in recruitment process.
Is that wrong?
I might have explained it in a somewhat sarcastic manner, which could lead you to the conclusion that this entire certification concept is yet another invention of greedy people.
No. I mean, I don’t know if the people who sell certifications are greedy, maybe, but it‘s not my intention to judge whether it’s good or not. It’s just a business model. And for open source companies it’s another way to get money and keep their business (code) running (and up to date).
Certifications are not something that was invented by software development world. It’s widely known in other industries as well. Let’s say you have a broken dishwasher, and you know nothing about dishwashers — only that you put there dirty dishes and after some amount of time they came out clean. The dishwasher was manufactured by X company (not Twitter related). As a client, whom would you call? The X-certified dishwasher service professional or a regular dishwasher service professional?
Moreover — if the certified one is an employee of some service company, did this company hire him solely because he had that certificate (assuming he had obtained one before joining them)? I doubt it.
DISCLAIMER: I know nothing about dishwasher services industry.
So… should you get that certificate?
To make it easier for you, I have created a diagram that should assist you in making the right decision.
That’s your money
Even if I already did so in the title, I’m not going to tell you what to do with your own money. You can spend or waste it on whatever you want. You earned it.
A couple of months ago, I bought a ~25-year-old PlayStation, and as I write this sentence, I still haven’t tested if it even works. And that’s just one piece of junk I’ve spent my money on during my entire life. So, I know a lot about wasting money. I might even be able to get a certificate for that.
Thanks for your time! I hope you enjoyed the article. Don’t hesitate to give a clap or leave a comment!
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More from me:
How to create a personal website, but it’s 1999 — going back in time to the late ’90s to create a simple website.
The Game of Life in one tweet — a short story about condensing code to fit within 280 characters.
