Same energy from Rio. I did 3 AWS certs, still on G Suite support for local clients. The trick here is nobody cares about cloud certs if you don't have the cloud job first. Catch-22. I'm pivoting to Fortinet because the firewall market here is hot and the cert is cheaper.
Manchester perspective: I spent £0 on certs. Got my current role through a home lab blog and answering questions on Server Fault for 4 years. Employer paid for RHCSA after I started. My advice is always the same: build something, write about it, let people find you. Certs are a tax on people without networks.
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Transparency: this is harsh and I mostly agree. But I will add that for visa sponsorship and certain HR filters, the cert is a checkbox that gets you past the robot. My CKA specifically got me through the door at a place that required it for compliance reasons. The network got me the interview, the cert got me past procurement. Both can be true.
In France this is normal, the notice period is 3 months anyway hahaha. But seriously, my 1800€ for Azure was after employer said "we will reimburse" and then they change the policy. Now I have the cert and they have my resignation. I go to Luxembourg next month for better pay. The cert is not wasted but the story is complicated.
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Same thing in Korea. Company promises tuition, you pay first and wait 6 months for reimbursement, then manager leaves and new manager says "I don't see the approval." Happened to two people I know. My rule now: company pays upfront or I don't study. Vultr actually did this for my CKA, no problems.
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From Jakarta: Hostinger has a datacenter here so I know the market. $18/hr is actually not bad for Indonesia but I understand US cost of living is different. For my team I tell them: get the cert only if you can explain it to me in Bahasa with a diagram. If you can't teach it, you don't know it. The paper is worthless.
This is the real cert. Home lab with pfSense, Proxmox, a real VLAN setup, and then you document it. That's the interview that gets you hired. Everything else is just proving you can sit through a test. WARNINGS: my original post stands. Your lab is worth more than your badge. Firewall it properly.
