Why programming certificates are almost useless

Why programming certificates are almost useless

When I was starting my career of Junior Java Developer I was very interested in getting some beautiful certificate. As I grow professionally my views changed to opposite. I think I can share them to you to help in your chosen path.

There are many certifications from well known companies. For example:

• Microsoft is certifying for bunch of its products, platforms and few languages - like Office, Visual Studio, SQL Server, C#.
• Oracle in similar manner can give you several certificates for different fields of Java programming and Oracle database.
• BrainBench and similar companies just provide exams for almost everything possible.

Of course all of them cost money.

At first, why I did not get certificate in Java myself (though I was preparing to it). When I started, the structure of certification was as following: you could get “Sun Certified Java Programmer” and optionally simpler “Associate” level certificates. Then you can get to second level of “Java Developer”, “EE Developer” etc.

When I felt myself prepared - I’ve found that Java 7 is soon to come. I decided to wait for updated versions of certification. This process was slow because Oracle have taken Java from Sun, I think. At last they published certification for Java 7. But now Java 8 was looming - with its major changes (lambdas, streams in collections etc). I was already working as middle developer and decided to wait a bit more. But it seemed Oracle has hard time with 8-th version and it was postponed a couple of times.

When Java 8 was at last ready, I’ve already changed several positions of Senior Developer. I knew that no one is going to introduce Java 8 in production soon - and moreover I learned that no one cares about certificates!

Why is it so?

Most certifications cover some quite narrow field. Basic Java certification covers mainly syntax and core abilities of the language, virtual machine and a bit of API. So though it is a tough exam, it is quite possible to get such certificate and get no idea of industrial-scale using of Java.

My colleague claims that among people he was interviewing during the course of last years there were several with Java Programmer certificate, who were still very hopeless in the sense of general programming - lacking knowledge of basic algorithms, being ignorant of most popular tools and frameworks used in Java. So there was neither reason nor chance for them to be hired.

So should we then get certificate of EE developer later? Probably, but will it be worth without some SQL certification since every sane application uses a kind of database?

Then, perhaps, you need 3 or 4 certificates to feel yourself confident? It could be so, but this will take significant time and you meanwhile can found yourself senior developer or team lead already.

The other horrible truth is that higher level certificates are so rare, that very few people know what are they worth at all.

When certificates are still useful

Certificates could be required by customer. Though customers probably may not know much of their value (or on contrary know it very well) - they may require, for example, that at least 5 persons of the team have such and such certificates. This may be helpful, for example, for certifying the product itself.

Usually this is solved by your company - i.e. when you are hired for such project, you are told to prepare for certification (a couple of months is usually sufficient) and is certified with expenses paid by your employer instead of you.

Another important point is, of course, that while preparing for certification you necessarily get some specific knowledge. It may happen that you will forget part of this knowledge later, but learning is always very good.

The last but not least is that certificates drive your motivation and (when you get them) self-estimation. It is of course quite important for beginner helping to prevent despair and leaving the study. :)

Concluding

If you have strong intention and free money to spend - go on with certification. It will not harm, it will teach you something of course.

But if you do not feel inclined or have no much finances - do not think this will impede your progress. You may always invest your time into getting “certificate” from some of free courses like Coursera or even from 3-rd party sites like mine. Yes, Certificates at CodeAbbey are free and also useless (like ones of Coursera) - but nevertheless they can serve your motivation and self-estimation. And they are simply beautiful enough to hang on the wall over your desk :)

Really - at interviews during last couple of years I was several times asked of the courses I completed at Coursera, of my ranks at TopCoder and Codeforces (just once) - but never about Oracle certificates. Except one case when I was asked to be able to get certified during probation period (though eventually I did not got hired at this company since they were offering smaller wages compared to some other which made me an offer).