Why Self-Taught Developers SHOULD Get Certified

what's up everybody it's Travis here from travisdom media today we're talking it certifications so think cloud certifications Network certifications cyber security kubernetes Etc are they worth it will they help you in your career will they help you land that first job we're going to discuss all of that today and I'm doing this video today because I have recommended in the past that anybody getting into Tech should get some Cloud certification of some sort that's always been a recommendation for me but there's a lot of hate out there from experienced software engineers and I.T professionals regarding certifications and I kind of get it because those people have been in the industry for 10 15 20 25 years they know everything they're very good and then they see these brand new developers of like six months one year two years getting certified and thinking they know everything so I kind of get that but I don't really come to the same conclusion their argument is that certifications are meaningless because you can basically just learn the answers so you learn the answers to pass the certification but you don't really know know the stuff when you get out there in the real world what do you do you don't know your stuff it doesn't prove anything it doesn't give you any real world experience I get it but I disagree while some of that may be true that's not true for us right so in this video I'm going to give three quick reasons why that's not the case for most self-taught developers and then I'm going to recommend how to get certified and what path to take in doing so let's get started so three reasons why you should still get certified don't listen to those people they're wise they make good calls on a lot of things and I get their problems but here's three reasons why you shouldn't care and you should still go ahead and get certified in 2023 or whatever year it is number one is because as a self-taught developer you just don't have any other sort of credibility you don't have a computer science degree you don't have a degree to back up your knowledge and I say you don't have any credibility because a large majority of my viewers are just learning to code or in the process of trying to land that first job when you're self-taught you don't have have any real world experience you don't have anybody to say this guy did great work in my company you don't have past experience on your resume you just have a GitHub repo a head full of knowledge and the desire for somebody to give you a chance to prove it but getting a standardized certification in a major cloud or service of some sort not only shows a potential employer that you're serious about your Pursuit but it gives you something official to show in regards to your knowledge so you have all this potential that they're going to take a chance on and then you'll be able to prove it but on top of that you have a standard certificate you have AWS or Azure or Google or somebody like that saying hey this guy learned enough to get certified in this cloud or in networking or in cyber security so that's number one you just don't have any other credibility and you need everything you can up front to convince someone to give you that first job and from there you'll get the experience and you can pass that on to your next jobs but when you're trying to land your first one in your self-taught you gotta take what you can get you got to do it you can and I think a certification can only help number two it can greatly accelerate your learning and it could fill gaps that you didn't know that you have take AWS for example you not only learn cloud computing and AWS services but you learn about networking so vpcs and subnets and IP ranges you learn about cues and clis and access management that's a lot and those are Concepts you probably wouldn't learn in a self-taught route think about the Security Plus certification that's totally out of the realm of typical developer day-to-day activities if you got certified in a Security Plus you would be learning things you had no clue about and all of those things would make you more well-rounded to be not only a developer but a secure developer that understands the security side of things so that's number two it can greatly accelerate your learning it can fill gaps to make you more well-rounded gaps that you didn't know you had things that will help you in the future in number three it shows your drive if a company says this guy's self-taught he's going to come in and show me what he's got they're going to look at what you've learned they're going to check out your GitHub repo you might show them that you know your stuff but they're also going to see that you went out of your way to get certified and every little bit helps in those early stages showing that motivation that desire to learn is Big with companies it lets them know that you're eager to learn new things and that you're a teachable person that you're passionate about the industry and that you've taken the initiative to learn these things and those are my three reasons I think they're pretty compelling for self-taught developers we don't have degrees we didn't do internships many of us are like 30 35 going on 40. we don't have a lot of weight on our side helping us here we got to do what we can so one it adds to your credibility two it can actually accelerate your learning and fill gaps and three it shows potential employers your drive your eager and desire to learn your passion for this industry so experienced developers I understand their concern but you got to get your foot in the door you got to grow and certifications will help help you with that they can't hurt you if you apply for a company and their it manager also has the thought that he hates certifications it can't hurt you they're not not going to hire you because you're certified it just won't help you but it can't hurt you and you need everything you can to help you in this Pursuit alright so next what certifications should you get so I recommend I always have recommended in my videos that the first certification that you get is one major Cloud certification because everybody's in the cloud every job application out there requires knowledge in one of the major clouds Amazon Azure Google Cloud pick one doesn't matter I got certified in AWS and Azure because I worked in both and I wanted to learn both I haven't done much in Google but you can go with that as well but here's the thing you got to be careful what certification you choose because each cloud has like an intro certification and then they have their first like legit certification you want to make sure you're getting the legit certification here's what I mean by that so AWS has a cloud practitioner owner certification it's kind of an intro to the cloud it's a super basic course if you don't know anything about the cloud it's probably wise to do this you don't have to get certified in it but maybe just do the course but that's not your ultimate goal your ultimate goal needs to be one of these associate certifications so I would recommend the AWS certified Solutions architect associate that's the first in my opinion legit certification not the cloud practitioner you can do it but the solutions architect associate is not an easy certification and it shows that you've done your work and Azure basically has the same thing they have an exam called the AZ 900 which is like the intro to the Azure Cloud it's the equivalent of the AWS Cloud practitioner you can take it nothing wrong with that but the ultimate goal is the associate level exam which is the az-104 so you can do AWS you can do Azure and gcp has the same thing they have their associate certification so I would recommend that you do one of those first so that would be the first certification that I would recommend because it's in demand and everybody's in the cloud so how do you learn this material what do you need to study well I've done a video on AWS and on Azure so when I got certified I immediately went and did a video on here's the exact steps that I took here's the courses that I took the practice tests everything and I also did one on Azure here's the steps that I took to study and prepare for the Azure and I passed them both I didn't fail them so I'll put links to those videos below you can check those out if you're planning to take those certifications but as for what content to watch I recommend starting with udemy so whether it's AWS Azure or gcp udemy's got you covered for instance for AWS there's this guy Stephane Marek he has the certified Cloud practitioner course which you can take that's not the ultimate goal but he also has this certified Solutions architect associate which I took I took this one I did The Wiz Labs practice tests I think I did some other tests you can see in the other video but this is a great course to take to learn this and udemy courses are always like 10 to 20 bucks and I know you're going to say well hey Travis is 109 bucks I get a lot of comments like this guy said it was 10 bucks and here it is says 109. that's because you got to find the coupons and I have a page on my website since all of these questions were coming in I created this page at travis.media udemy where I continually update udemy coupons So currently today is May 26th there's a two-day sale going on 85 off from the 25th through the 26th if I click on the link I should get the discounted prices there's also a Memorial Day sale and also the whole month of June I.T certification courses are 11.99 the whole month of June so make sure you don't pay this 109 bucks just go to travis.media slash udemy and I'll have all the latest updates there now if you want to go to Azure route here's the 900 which is the fundamentals exam you can take it but that's not the goal the goal is the az104 Azure administrator exam and then if you want to do Google Cloud there's just one guy that kind of rules it so just look up Google Cloud certification and that guy will come up now some other options that you can take I mentioned the CompTIA Security Plus I'd recommend this course by Jason Dion it's the one I took when I did my security plus I had to get certified in the Security Plus for one of my jobs and it was a very well-rounded certification like if you look at this malware security applications mobile device security hardening Supply Chain management virtualization Network design Cloud security cryptography hashing public key infrastructure all kind of stuff you wouldn't really learn in a traditional developer route so that's another good certification a CompTIA has some other ones the a plus which is like learning computer Basics they have the cloud plus a generic Cloud certification cyber security Linux Plus network plus pin test plus lots of certifications there as well it just depends on where your interests are what route you want to take in this vast it field and then there's some other great ones like the CCNA for networking and things like that but I would recommend starting out with a cloud certification then you can move on to some CompTIA stuff networking wherever you want to go from there if you want to get into kubernetes and Docker kubernetes has the cka but it's going to be hard and then another one another certification that I think is Meaningful that you may disagree with is the hashicorp terror terraform certification if you look at the job applications that are out there probably sixty percent of them have terraform experience on it especially if you're getting into devops or SRE works so that would be another good one the terraform certification it's the hashicorp associate certification now before I end this video I have to give two warnings because people are going to yell at me if I don't so let me give you two warnings the first one is don't let these certifications puff you up that's why the 15 20 25 years of experience IIT professionals hate it because you get this certification and then it Puffs you up you think you're amazing but you still have a long way to go don't let it puff you up let it help you accelerate the beginning of your career and get you where you want to be and don't let it go to your head remember there are lots of people out there that have these certifications just like you you're not the only one and second don't get carried away with certifications they are a means to an end it's not something you just want to keep accumulating for principle I'm looking at you 15x AWS certified people get the associate get the professional get the security that's fine but make sure it's helping you in your job and it's getting you to where you want to be and you're not just getting them just to get them so don't let it go to your head and don't get carried away with them but I think they will help you in your career I Am pro certifications sometimes you just need to tune some people out stay focused do what it takes to land the job and grow in your career oh and there's a number three and this is so important it actually should have gone earlier in the video and it's this make sure you're actually learning the stuff in the certification the accusations are that we're just learning the answers and we're able to get the certification by hid knowledge and not really understanding how like the cloud works so I can take the course learn the answers to everything do a bunch of practice tests and pass the certification and that's sort of true you can do that to an extent but when you do these certifications when you're learning make sure you get Hands-On and that you spend lots of time understanding the networking and the services and build out all of this infrastructure yourself I think AWS gives you a free tier for like a year you can deploy all the free tier stuff at no cost so make sure you're deploying everything you're doing it Hands-On and that you really understand what you're learning that way the accusations won't be true an example of this is if you do Azure and you do the udemy course you do some practice tests make sure you also go to the Microsoft learn site because they have a lot of practical projects for you they have a GitHub repo and they give you challenges go out and deploy this make these changes do this yourself so don't cut the corners do the work so that when you get certified and somebody goes hey Travis is certified he can do it that you can actually do it if you found this video helpful give it a thumbs up consider subscribing and I'll see you in the next video thank you

Channel: Travis Media

Views: 40,710

Keywords: self taught programmer, it certifications, developer certifications, software engineer certifications, it certifications 2023, it certifications vs degree, top paying certifications, aws certifications, ccna certification, azure certifications, google cloud certifications, comptia certifications, cloud certifications, cyber security certifications, top IT certifications 2023, get certified

Id: H1-s1yF9TUA

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2023