I think many certs are used just to pass the resume screen or provide the company with a contractual/publicity statistic. The knowledge from the cert is valuable, but you don't necessarily need a cert to gain that knowledge. So these recommendations are based on the value of the cert itself (in my very limited opinion). You also have domain specific certs such as CFA foundations when working for s financial company.
Security: CISSP, GSEC, CEH
Cloud: AWS, and I assume Google and Azure have certs for theirs too
Hardware/Networking: A+, Network+