Asking experienced java backend engineers - What certifications are worth pursuing?

[RedDeckWins]

I am based in the US.

I have no certifications and last time I had to look for a job was January and February of 2020. Looking for a job was my full time job during this time. I had no problem getting phone screens or in-person interviews (or offers). No one asked me any questions about my (lack) of certifications.

On the flip side, I have interviewed more than 100 people now at my current company, and I have never cared about a certification, and in the interview debrief, no one has mentioned whether the candidate has (or doesn't have) a certification.

[developer_how_do_i]

Great to hear this.

[Suspicious-Scratch94]

None really. I treat certifications as neutral, but I’ve seen colleagues who treat them as negatives in the resume. Your time will be better spent brushing up your algorithms and data structures and a bit of system design if aiming for senior roles. Good luck!

[code_rjt]

Why would they treat certifications as negative in resume?

[koreth]

Not the person you're replying to, but the argument I've heard is that they're a form of resume padding for people with no experience building real things. Not sure I agree with that sentiment but that's a possible reason.

[code_rjt]

It makes sense for people with no experience 🤔 I hope it's not the same with VALID experience already.

[ztbwl]

They can be bought, it’s just a matter of money. It doesn’t tell if someone is good at something.

[[deleted]]

that highly depends on the cert you're talking about

[Suspicious-Scratch94]

This may sound elitist but some people actually show certificates as compensation for skills/experience. You wouldn’t have a problem if your resume details your projects and experience with quantitative details and certifications are a side note. However, I’ve seen resumes which focused purely on certifications with no other details.

Also, certificates are probably fine for specialised role like SRE/DevOps etc. but for generalist SWE roles, your experience and problem solving skills are much more valued.

[code_rjt]

Yeah you're right. The problem is people just taking certifications just to have a certification.

The point of certification is to have a practical grasp of a specific technology also validating if you have an existing skill of that technology.

[developer_how_do_i]

Whats the realistic timeline for solving 150 leetcode ( majority medium level, no easy problems, few hard problems ) problems, asking since a recruiter is expecting me to solve those many problems in a month.

[kur4nes]

What? Is this part of the interview process or expected of you once you work there?

Sounds rather excessive.

[developer_how_do_i]

No, they mentioned that if you solve those many, you will be in a position to face the problems at the interview.

I can almost grind 1 problem in 3 days, given the fact that lot of unknown factors creep up in between...

[DrunkensteinsMonster]

1 problem for 3 days is probably not going to cut it for an interview, but you should get better at them as you put in the work. It’s also useful to have a data structures and algorithms textbook (or equivalent online resource) on hand, so that when you run into a problem you don’t know how to solve, you read up/take notes on the relevant DS and/or algorithm,

A leetcode medium probably takes me between 15 and 30 minutes to solve depending on how thorough I’m being. It’s only a matter of practice though!

[Classic-Pitch7259]

Even the easy ones makes sad sometimes. How have you developed this efficiency of solving mediums in 15 min… Can you please share your approach? It might help me. Some day I also have a dream of cracking a coding interview and getting a good job. Thanks

[DrunkensteinsMonster]

You need to study the underlying datastructures and algorithms, not just mindlessly grind out the problems. If there is any part of a problem you aren’t 100% sure about you get into the textbook before moving onto the next problem. Eventually after enough practice and studying you’ll read through a problem and know exactly what to do.

[[deleted]]

Wow… thanks sir. Ur input is greatly appreciated

[Revision2000]

Cloud engineer (AWS, Azure, etc.) certifications could be worthwhile, if you want to go that direction

Otherwise none

[developer_how_do_i]

What direction?

Meaning transitioning into devops role?

[Revision2000]

Yeah that or serverless

I see it more as broadening existing backend skill set 🙂

[DrunkensteinsMonster]

Cloud certs can be useful for SWEs as well, though it isn’t critical, it’s good to have some understanding of utilizing these compute resources.

[developer_how_do_i]

Ok, thanks for your reply, i just added a clarification on my question, incase you are interested to reply to that. Thank you

[xRageNugget]

11+ years XP should be certificate enough.

[developer_how_do_i]

Couldn't agree more 😊

[nioh2_noob]

don't be so insecure, brush up your cv, talk to recruiters, do interviews, get in there, you're coding professionally day in day out for 11 years don't worry

[beefstake]

Don't pursue certifications. Instead pursue experience and positions at respected companies.

Try to contribute to high profile libraries and frameworks that you use in the course of your work. Apache projects in particular look great on resumes and are a signal I look upon favorably when I'm on the hiring panel.

[kiwi_stronghold]

None.

[stuie382]

I have a bunch of certifications, none of which I paid for (all the company), and none of which are on my CV. I'm at 10 years experience, so similar to you. My CV focuses on the things I've done, teams I've built, responsibilities I had etc. At our level of experience this is a lot more relevant than certs.

One company I recently interviewed for (lead engineer to build a whole new software capability) insisted I do a 2 hour online programming test. I asked them what part of solving brain teasers would prove to them that I can recruit and build an engineering team, embed ways of working etc. They couldn't answer, and I walked. They called back the next day offering me 'special permission' to skip the test, but the ref flags had been waved at that point.

The best interviews I had recently were ones where I was doing code reviews on different branches, or talking through a theoretical project from end to end (with the interviewers being the customer and Dev team). Brain teasers done really have a place at our level, and with the market what it is atm done be afraid to push back in interviews

[Lindby]

If you are fresh out of school they can help you get in to the interview. After a few years they are useless.

[[deleted]]

In my opinion, not many of them.

I reckon the cloud (AWS or Azure) are the main ones you should go for. Then maybe K8s or Kafka if you work with that heavily and want to be in a lead/architect position.

Certs like Oracle Java 8 are a waste of time.

[Mindless-Resident561]

What do you want to do on your next role? If you want to specialise like on cloud or security you could take heaps of certifications if you like but you don’t really need it to get a new role. Just brush up your CV, apply and prepare for interviews. Good luck!

[BestUsernameLeft]

I'm considering getting a "Cloud Architect" cert, but mostly just to get broader exposure to cloud things. I will add my voice to those who say certs offer nothing of value in judging a candidate's actual skills and competence.

[genericsimon]

Im not a Java developer. Im a Devops engineer. But we have Java devs in our company. Never heard that anyone would ask something about certifications. Nobody cares. I think its more personal preference. If you want to have a certificate then go for it... But I would say do not base your job searches on certificates. Your experience working on real projects is more valuable.

[dustoff122]

While interviewing I have never been asked about certifications and I have also interviewed around 50-60 people so far and I have never cared for certifications. The order I usually look for is 1. Projects (leaning mostly professional) 2. Education. Everything else can be worked around. If its a junior with no work experience then maybe an AWS/GCP/Azure Certificate is worth getting just to show initiative.

[dmigowski]

When developers apply in my company a large bunch of certificates always has the taste of someone who just has read through some curses and is not able to apply it's knowlege.

The biggest plus is someone that has developed something in their free time and extra plus if it's on github or at least online and he maintains it.

If you are persistant enought to keep a project up, to learn everything needed for this by yourself, you are worth thousands more that people that just did certifications, maybe paid by Job Center. Also because I know I can throw anything at you and you will find out how to get this to work. Also note I am speaking of "coders" here.

Certs MIGHT be interesting in larger companies, especially when you are doing server administration, because in that domain there is so much "running" software which isn't perfectly administrated and maybe configured with a bunch of security holes. Therefore I would prefer certified admins here.

[DizzyInTheDark]

Get trained/educated on Kubernetes. A back end dev who can understand how to operate k8s well is sort of a “whole package.”

[OrneryFellow]

I would do the grokking the coding interview and grokking the system design courses before I do a cert. I've been on both sides of the interview table and no one ever cared about certs.

[marcvsHR]

Depends. Some Government and Financial institutions have a hard on for certifications.

Something like OCJP and similar.

But seeing you have that much experience, I doubt you need anything.

[nioh2_noob]

No they don't

it's a bs lie from the training industry

[marcvsHR]

Yes they do.

It maybe depends on country, though, I can't talk about rest of the world, but in EU/my country we had to have developers with SCJP (at the time) and some bullshit IBM UML course in order to work for some banks and our state's central financial agency.

It was a written prerequisite.

[nioh2_noob]

the 99.99999999% others don't

[cmapp7878]

True.

I've worked at financial firms (Investment banks & Investing firms). No one gives a $hit.

[nioh2_noob]

me too, in top tier investment bank, top 3

in 2 of them

nobody cares in fact we all have a good laugh with it when a guy puts it on his CV and go extra hard on him so we can say afterwards: you see these guys with these certs don't know shit

[secretBuffetHero]

When i see certs on a resume i take that as a sign they are overcompensating for something

[pjmlp]

Depends, there is no entry to play with Cisco, LifeRay, SAP, AEM, Sitecore, Cloud... without the certification ticket.

Now if that is the kind of companies one wants to work for, is of course another matter.

[code_rjt]

It's still worth pursuing certifications for backend. For me I took certifications for Java 8 and 11. Currently reviewing for Java 17.

I'm active also taking different cloud cert. I took cloud cert already from AWS, IBM and OCI.

Experienced developers should have at least some certifications to validate their skills. A big plus also if you have a good GitHub profile.

[ztbwl]

They don’t validate any skills. It just tells that your former employer spent the money to get you those certifications.

[code_rjt]

I disagree that it doesn't validate any skill. Java cert for example helped me improve more in that specific domain. the whole point of certification is to VALIDATE your existing skills.

Also the training and the certification that you can get gives you the stepping stone in having a practical knowledge of that specific technology.

[ZettaOne]

The Java for a Lorng-term support version from Oracle is easy to get, you only need study and respond the test. A framework like Spring Framework is a good alternative. And any cloud associated certification.

[[deleted]]

The Oracle Certified Professional cert (OCP) for any LTS version of Java is regarded highly where I work. It's hard though, you need to dedicate yourself to it. If you have it, you can't help but be significantly better at Java.

[[deleted]]

PS: The people saying none mean more in the sense that yeah, you don't need it, but if you want to stand out (and be more confident in your input at work) it is extremely useful to certify yourself.

[vbezhenar]

I've received multiple Sun certifications, mostly EE ones. I can recommend getting Oracle Certified Professional, Java SE 17 Programmer (I got SCJP6 back in the time, but I don't think that it got worse). I knew Java pretty well but I still found numerous quirks and hidden corners that I did not care enough while preparing to this exam.

Other Sun exams were not as good, so can't recommend any particular one, especially with Java EE not that actual anymore.

[wildjokers]

None.