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Is the CCNA certificate worth it for Software developers? (self.ask_experienced_devs)

submitted 1 year ago by flakpanzer to c/ask_experienced_devs

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TLDR: I am not talking about the CCNA material (which is great for learning networking, albeit a bit too much detail for software devs), I am asking about the certificate itself, is it worth it to spend months preparing for the certificate, spending $300 on it, passing it and then putting it on your resume? Does it matter if I am open to move to DevOps positions in the future?

Background: I am a self-taught Software dev with about 4 YOE, and in order to teach myself Networking & CyberSecurity, stumbled upon this Jeremy IT Labs UT Course on CCNA. The course has been tremendously helpful in teaching me how networks actually work. It has a lot more detail than I what I needed (the ios cli, labs & configuration etc), but it has been worth it so far (I'm on day 55). However, now I am wondering if I should spend the money and effort to actually get the CCNA certificate itself. (I know 1 course is not enough to pass that certificate, I will have to spend many more hours diving into the details, memorizing things and making connections between concepts and topics)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not familiar with that certification, but looking at it, as you say the knowledge gained from it would be tremendously useful.

If you are looking to get into DevOps, I'd probably suggest you do some of the cloud certifications instead (AWS, Azure, GCP). Those will cover everything, from networking to infrastructure to app development on cloud platforms.

The CCNA cert itself would probably be more useful if you want to be a network engineer in a data center. But I would definitely recommend you keep doing the course, if not the exam.

A lot of people I work with don't have low level networking skills, so if you can develop those alongside your appdev skills it would set you apart.

A final word about certifications. When I interview people, I will notice if they have certifications but I don't put much stock in them. I've worked with too many people that have them and are still useless. If you do them, make sure you spend the time to actually learn and understand the material rather than just doing enough to pass the exams, because that's where the real value is.

[–] flakpanzer 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you for insightful response.

I do have AWS Solutions Architect Associate cert. I will eventually get more AWS certs. But networking has been one of my weak points when working as well as learning other stuff, so decided to focus on networks for a bit. Will continue the course, and if my employer agrees to pay the fees, will attempt the exam.

[–] jim 3 points 1 year ago

In my opinion, no it's not worth it. A CCNA and the related family of Cisco certifications really trains you to be a network engineer or work in ops in general. The certificate is not very valuable for a dev or devops role in general. The material itself goes over topics that are less valuable like spanning tree protocol. And it doesn't much if anything beyond layer 4. DNS, load balancing, web protocols (HTTP, etc) are all more valuable topics to learn.

Now, the material that you're learning isn't wasteful, necessarily, but devops positions are not generally configuring routers and switches day-to-day, so I don't view this as something valuable for software engineers even in devops roles.

Some of the topics that I find valuable - general TCP/IP in general and some of the routing protocols (namely BGP is the big one) - but the other stuff just requires passing knowledge that it exists and not much else. I would pick up a networking book and go over the topics in there instead of configuring switches and vlans.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You already have some experience, so I’d suggest working with your employer to pay for the certification and classes rather than going out of pocket.

Either they will pay and you’re happy, or they’ll tell you it isn’t valuable for your role and that also gives you valuable information

[–] flakpanzer 1 points 1 year ago

Good idea, my employer covered my AWS cert, I'll try and see if they cover CCNA.