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Kervyn
Kervyn

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Levelling up as Developers

Recently I've been speaking to some Senior Developers, Technical Leads and Solution Architects about what I can do to further improve my skillset as a developer.

Besides the commonly brought up (and important) concept of getting out there and acquiring more work experience, another important point that was highlighted was the concept of being certified.

Purpose of certifications

Prior to this, my thoughts of getting certifications was to use them as a means of acquiring a better position, or receiving higher forms of compensation as a result of my newly acquired, vetted knowledge by professionals. However, after speaking more to some highly experienced individuals, it turns out that I was wrong, and in a good way!

Sure, certifications might grant us some form of higher compensation in our current work; it might help us to land a job in a new position, but I was missing the point here. The purpose of a certification, is not so much about the end result of being certified, but instead more so about the journey to being certified.

Along this journey, we are exposed to concepts, tips and tricks that we potentially never came across before. As developers, these can come in very handy when we are solving problems in our day to day tasks. Often, these tips come in handy when we least expect them the most, so pay attention to what you learn along the way when you're doing your courses!

Throughout this learning journey, we are often exposed as well to the nuances of what we're actually doing. Whether it be coding a particular feature, or using features in a particular library, there could be things we've missed out in our original learning process that could serve as important tools in our arsenal!

To help you out, here are some certifications that I was told about for you to explore!

  1. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

  2. AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

  3. Java SE 8 Programmer certification

  4. CAPM/PMP Project Management Institute (PMI) certificate

  5. Scrum Master I

Some of these certifications may seem foreign to you, and that's ok! There are many, many more certifications available out there and I've only listed a handful for you to check out.

No matter the certifications, remember that the journey of learning is most important. Keep that in mind and I believe that you'll have a far more fulfilling journey in your career!

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