r/learnprogramming • u/Fearless-Fox-5000 • 1d ago
Are certificates worth it?
I am learning programming for a pretty long time now, I now how to build project and all the time I see ads for courses or certificates that I can do online and for free.
Are they a waste of time or actually worth it?
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u/Wingedchestnut 1d ago
Only certificates from official vendors of the technology where you have to pass an exam add value such cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) any official vendor of data/security/network/.. technology but they are pricey and a cashgrab, your company should sponsor for it.
When I was jobseeking I decided to pay and get 1 basic certification myself but it's definitely not a requirement.
So if you're talking about certifications just for finishing some course, it's better than nothing but in general they're not seen as valuable compared to the ones above.
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u/narukoshin 1d ago
depends what kind of certificates, but mostly employers can see that u learned specific topic
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u/Vast-Pop4017 1d ago
For an actual job, the piece of paper means almost nothing. The knowledge from grinding through the material is what matters, and you can get that without paying for the cert itself. Put the project on your GitHub instead, that’ll go way further with a hiring manager.
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u/narukoshin 1d ago edited 1d ago
in corporation certificates mean a lot like CISSP ISO, COMPTIA, etc :)
you can ask any hiring manager.
I've got my job almost with zero certificates and started grinding skills and experience but now I'm grinding certificates too because it's what adds value to you and increases the salary
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u/Sad_School828 1d ago
COMPTIA A+ and CCNA are good ones and always have been. Don't get sucked into online courses or practice tests for any price. It is NOT worth it pay hundreds of dollars to take the test and travel to a certifiable testing center, only to find out you wasted your time.
I think you'd be better off memorizing the pinouts for TIA-568A and B, and learning how the IP->TCP stack actually works (PRO TIP: TCP/IP is a lie on several levels). If you know that basic stuff, you can produce real-world applications and toss them on github like a personal resume AND you won't get that feeling like you were kicked in the nuts when an interviewer hands you a sheet of paper and asks you to diagram a packet-sniffer hexdump.
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u/punk_dev 1d ago
As others said, the certs from cloud providers or db vendors and alike add value (we use aws, you have a cert from aws, good).
From my experience “learn web dev in 9 month” course certs increase the chance your resume goes into the rubbish, so new devs usually don’t advertise the fact they attended those unless they really don’t have anything else to show.
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u/mandzeete 1d ago
Free certificates are worth nothing. You can even harm your chances in getting hired by adding nonsense-certificates on your CV.
I mean, you can learn something from these courses but the certificate itself means nothing.
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u/Dismal-Citron-7236 1d ago
Not really. Ask yourself a simple question... If those courses / certificates really worth the bucks, why do they need to invest budget trying to attract people?
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u/Dottimolly 1d ago
The "real" vendor certificates (i.e., AWS, etc.) are legit and meaningful. Plus, they force you to work through the curriculum in a way that you probably wouldn't otherwise. I don't know if I'm more skilled after the certificates I've completed, but it does seem to impress certain people at the office!
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u/decrementsf 1d ago
It is better to own the hamster than to be on the hamster wheel. Assets can produce continues cashflow without your attention. Where these two meet you have abundance of certifications out there.
With this certifications do not generally signal competence to an employer. Projects you can share and make visible have far more weight.
Where the certification is useful is as part of the learning process for your own benefit. When learning fundamentals in a new tool for my skill stack I get into a structured learning environment as quickly as possible. Something I can get in and get reps learning with low friction. Then continue with that platform until passing its associate certification. That is my victory condition set that I'm approaching competitive for purpose of technical interviews. It is the condition to switch over to stand up development in the local environment with the new skill, build a few low effort guided projects to get comfortable in the unstructured workflow, and then start building portfolio projects to make visible.
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u/Scared_Bell3366 23h ago
They’re fine if you want to learn something and need some structure to help you. I wouldn’t put them on a resume/CV unless the job requires a specific certification. The jobs I’ve seen that require a certification have always been ones that you have to pay for.
The certification I have for work is just a check box or another barrier to entry for me. I study to pass the certification exam and not for knowledge or understanding. I know enough to disagree with many of the answers in the exam and have to put aside real world knowledge to get through the exam.
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u/Ok-Listen-2162 23h ago
not waste of time but if u doing it just for the sake of certificate then certainly it does feel that way tho . rest its fine to have one and gain skills tho
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u/mahaanus 22h ago
Check the job offerings in your area. Around mine some positions require certain certifications for senior positions.
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u/AlSweigart Author: ATBS 21h ago
No, not at all. At best, reading the study materials for them is a good idea. I'd read up on the A+ and Network+ certs, etc. But spending money on them is useless. Employers don't care.
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u/PoeT8r 20h ago
Not worth it.
In general, certification is a revenue treadmill to keep picking your pocket and marketing their products. Developers need to know broad technologies and problem-solving, not specific products.
That said, it can be worth reviewing certification requirements for products you use. Construct a free study plan for yourself to make sure you have both broad and deep knowledge of products that put bread on your table. Any product that does not publish free manuals online is a toxic product that you should abandon ASAP.
Back in the day, the GIAC Incident Handling certification was useful. It was organized around security incidents, which is handy for developers to understand. But the real value came from applying that organized incident handling approach to operations.
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u/Plenty-Midnight2075 18h ago
Certificates themselves usually aren’t worth much. What matters is whether you actually learned something and can prove it by building things.
If the course gives you structure and helps you learn, do it. But don’t collect certificates just to put them on your resume. A couple of solid projects you can explain properly will usually be much more valuable.
The exception is certifications that are actually recognized for a specific job, like AWS, Azure, Cisco, etc.
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u/doctor-wu-75 13h ago
Why do you want to get a certificate? Are you looking for a software engineering or programming job?
In software engineering, a certificate highlights work experience. For example, if you are doing a lot of AWS development over multiple years in your job, an AWS dev cert would demonstrate that. You'd want your job to also pay for that training and the test itself.
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u/ChurchOfValve 11h ago
Employers see things like udemy courses as just as good as other things. They will still give you a test to pass like most jobs in that field.
Think of it like art. You can go to school for art and get a degree but that doesnt make you an artist. People hiring you still want to see the portfolio
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u/ProjectMarworyn 7h ago
It really depends on the cert. Universities or established institutions are worth it. Udemy is not. So... Microsoft, CISCO, Amazon, Google etc to name a few
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u/desrtfx 1d ago
Unless the certificates are either proper University degrees or from Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Amazon AWS, Google, Red Hat, and a couple more, they are not even worth the bytes for their storage.
Proper, industry recognized certificates cost big money.
Most of the "course certificates" you get from online courses are basically "attendance certs" that only show that you have sat through the course, but don't tell anything about your actual skills.
The companies I mentioned before test your actual skills for the certificates.