[Linux-aus] LA Certification

[Hugh Blemings]

Hiya,

On 4/7/23 12:22, Paul Gear via linux-aus wrote:
> On 3/7/23 18:41, Adam Nielsen via linux-aus wrote:
>>> As it happens a colleague of mine recently put the view (paraphrased
>>> slightly) "If I see lots of certifications it's a bit of a warning flag
>>> - why not put that time into contributing to a FOSS project they care
>>> about?" a fair point I thought.
>> This matches my own experience too.  I presume a lot of certifications
>> focus on memorising things rather than applying knowledge, because
>> people with a lot of certs often seem to struggle to come up with a
>> solution for a problem.  If you tell them the solution they can usually
>> implement it no problem, but you often have to hold their hand a bit
>> while you're trying to work out what the solution might look like.
>
>
> Speaking as someone who is FLOSS at heart but has a long list of 
> vendor certs, this makes me sad.
>
> I get vendor certs because my current and previous employer both 
> highly value them, and they make them free for staff to take. Most of 
> the ones I've taken (largely AWS & Azure) are little more than logic 
> tests and as long as you have a general idea about the product's 
> capabilities and are a competent reader and logical thinker, they 
> aren't difficult.  So the amount of time I need to dedicate to gaining 
> a certification in something I do every day is tiny compared to the 
> amount of effort I would need to expend to make significant FLOSS 
> contributions.  Not to mention that many of these vendors now have 
> significant footprints in the FLOSS ecosystem, especially in the 
> Kubernetes space.

That's a fair point Paul and in re-reading my original email I realise I 
missed a bit of nuance.

I should have made greater emphasis on the "...a /bit//of a/ warning 
flag..." - lots of certifications definitely wouldn't rule someone out 
if they also showed up well in other aspects of their resume (work 
experience, community contributions and whatnot)

Having visible FLOSS contributions also helps paint the picture, but 
again it's not a blocker either :)

Cheers,
Hugh


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