Software Dev Certifications: Do They Make a Difference?

Purpose of a certificate is to have a Knowledgeable Expert agree that you have a given skill. Like a University degree, but focused on a specific topic.

Certificates are most useful when 1) your resume does not clearly show extensive skill, 2)the person reading the resume does not know the material.

Unfortunately a lot of resumes get filtered out on keyword matches. I was once filtered out by HR for not explicitly saying '.Net Development', verses what I had 10 years of 'C# development'. Only found out because my friend at the company hunted down HR to ask why I was not being interviewed. Neither HR nor the hiring manager understood that C# was .Net.

If the job you are looking at is a shop with a lot of people with the same skill then you do not need it as they can tell from the interview.

If it is a company with few people, or they provide your skills as a service, then yes you do need the certs.

Is this clear? Seems like I have been rambling here a bit.

I have passed a few certs, may be useful if you want to put a foot in the door without network or land some govt/corporate contract requiring it.

But in my experience professional networking brings the best results - no questions about certs or silly coding quizees.

Best people I know haven't done any certs. Most people I know who did certification had not much prior experience in a subject and rarely had ocassion later on to gain one.

From what I can tell, AWS certs are pretty good to have. I haven't had any other certs really be useful in my career.

Thanks for the comments. I'm looking at the certs mainly to get my foot in the door.