Is DevOps Certification Worth It?

IT certifications have always served as the benchmark for assessing professionals’ ability to exploit technology and offer something which proves that the candidates are proficient with the required skills in the workplace. However, many such certifications are available and it’s hard to measure the softer, less-tangible skills that managers require with such certifications.

In this article, we’ll look at one such certification—DevOps—in detail.

Subjective Assessment

The ‘idea’ of best practices varies from from one organisation to another and finding ‘one right answer’ to the question is not easy. You need to factor in things like how would the candidate design, create, deploy, and integrate the tools? What about security? Resource allocation and value?

Agile, and DevOps are nnche areas that deal with continuous delivery. Since the space is yet to be clearly defined, certifications become more than just a necessity as they can help differentiate candidates in the industry by not just measuring technical competency but showing the candidate’s approach to addressing issues and problem solving.

These certifications can also be used to represent your point of view. New views and definitions are developing every single day within these frameworks, and a certification serves as a proof that you know exactly which approach you take while solving different customer issues.

The skills and tools developed using Agile and DevOps foundation are much broader than just one specific process or technology. In order to measure the capability of a candidate in these areas, you need to know whether they’re comfortable working with more than one technology and that’s exactly what a DevOps certification is trying to address.

Earning a DevOps certification demonstrates that you as an individual have gained a thorough understanding of concepts and skills like communication and management. It’s not easy to measure these skills even when the candidate has such a certification. Employers leave no stones unturned to ensure the validity of this certification and they do extensive research on the certification authority too as that’s the only way of ensuring that they get the results they’re looking for. So, make sure you’re taking this course from an institution that has the authority to certify DevOps.

How To Choose The Right Institution?

The certifying body needs to produce learning materials and a body of knowledge showing their own approaches to framework and topics related to DevOps. This is necessary so that candidates have a clear understanding of ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the best practices on which they’ll eventually be assessed on.

For the past 20-30 years, IT certifications have mostly been about taking an exam. However, with DevOps, things don’t work in the same way. A lot of emphasis is laid on courseware delivery, content, and most importantly on training. Apart from teaching material, candidates also should learn how to use that knowledge in real-world situations. They should be assessed on real time based scenarios, with a given set of facts and a specific technology.

DevOps-like certifications are difficult to design and develop, but these offer a deeper understanding of the candidate’s potential. Getting a DevOps certification is a great way to get a much-needed competitive edge over your peers in the IT hiring market. Experienced workers are scarce in this area and the best thing to do for any manager will be to get a DevOps certification. However, make sure that you choose the right institution in order to truly reap the benefits of the same.