Is AWS Certification worth it
Getting AWS certified is becoming a must have for anyone truly interested in working with AWS Cloud as a professional. There are 3 main reasons for that: requirements of AWS Partner program, learning process and your visibility on the market.
Become instantly more valuable
Obtaining AWS certifications is a required part of becoming an AWS Partner which for many companies means direct and indirect source of income. For only this reason it's worth getting an AWS cert if you happen to work or apply to a company which happens to be or want to be an AWS Partner.
There are more than 100 000 partners and each of them have to sustainably meet strict partnership requirements . Apart from ~ $2500 fee payable each year, the company has to hire a specific number of people (business and technical) with specific amount of certifications and deal with AWS customers in a satisfactory way during partnership.
Because the most proactive companies are already AWS Partners, the rest just try to hire people with similar competences as AWS Partners do, and the certs are part of it.
Become cloud competent
In the process of studying for certification you will have to learn a lot even if you are a professional already. AWS exams are generally considered as hard. Mainly because of the wide scope of an exam. Depending on the difficulty it can encompass more than 100 services to know with depth.
AWS certification exams are not solely focused on testing knowledge as many may think. Comprehension reading, deducting, time management and ability to concentrate for long periods of time are also tested. Not to mention that you need to score at least 80% of correct answers.
The difficulty speaks for itself and makes the certificate more valuable in the market.
Become more visible
Adding information about passed AWS certifications on Linkedin will start getting your profile into more search results. Statistically this should substantially increase your chance to be noticed and contacted. Remember to fill out the credential URL input that enables others to instantly validate the cert authenticity.
There are also AWS virtual badges for social media, resumes or even email signatures to show off your competence. Those hexagons can make your message look more interesting with catching eyes recognizable AWS logotypes.
Is it worth for me?
It depends. Each of the 13 available AWS certifications can be seen as a ticket to different opportunities with some overlapping. Opportunity doesn't mean landing a dream job but it's hard to imagine better time and money constrained investment giving so much for starters.