5 ms·

Honestly 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

more_corn 4y ago
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.
dc-programmer 4y ago
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.
- mountainriver 4y ago
  Thats a fair point, showing some level of effort is better than none. I generally want teams with just a few rockstars than a bunch of decent engineers. I've just found them to output far more at higher quality.
clusterhacks 4y ago
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.
jpitz 4y ago
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.
- primax 4y ago
  I've heard that comment once or twice but never from someone who actually has experience hiring people
  - mountainriver 4y ago
    lol I'm a principal engineer now and previously and EM with tons of hiring experience
    - dimmke 4y ago
      This makes me curious. I have 3 AWS certs, that I was required to get because I work for Amazon. I put them on my LinkedIn (I'm proud of them, they were hard to get) but haven't considered putting them on my resume. Are they really that bad that I should consider removing them from LinkedIn too?
      - mountainriver 4y ago
        I mean I'm just one guy with an opinion. I see them sort of in the same vein as CompTIA, and I prefer to hire people that think on their feet and can solve problems quickly using whatever skills may be required for the task. So generally I'm looking for creative problem solvers that do open source work and learn as they go on their own. I've just seen over my career that people who play the cert game are usually on the other end of this spectrum. I'm obviously painting in broad strokes here How I build teams has worked really well for me, but there are lots of great ways of building teams that create value which are likely very different from mine.
  - 4y ago

more_corn 4y ago

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.

dc-programmer 4y ago

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.

mountainriver 4y ago
Thats a fair point, showing some level of effort is better than none. I generally want teams with just a few rockstars than a bunch of decent engineers. I've just found them to output far more at higher quality.

clusterhacks 4y ago

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.

jpitz 4y ago

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.

primax 4y ago
I've heard that comment once or twice but never from someone who actually has experience hiring people
- mountainriver 4y ago
  lol I'm a principal engineer now and previously and EM with tons of hiring experience
  - dimmke 4y ago
    This makes me curious. I have 3 AWS certs, that I was required to get because I work for Amazon. I put them on my LinkedIn (I'm proud of them, they were hard to get) but haven't considered putting them on my resume. Are they really that bad that I should consider removing them from LinkedIn too?
    - mountainriver 4y ago
      I mean I'm just one guy with an opinion. I see them sort of in the same vein as CompTIA, and I prefer to hire people that think on their feet and can solve problems quickly using whatever skills may be required for the task. So generally I'm looking for creative problem solvers that do open source work and learn as they go on their own. I've just seen over my career that people who play the cert game are usually on the other end of this spectrum. I'm obviously painting in broad strokes here How I build teams has worked really well for me, but there are lots of great ways of building teams that create value which are likely very different from mine.
- 4y ago