People often ask on r/cscareerquestions, “Can I just get this Java Certification instead of doing a Bootcamp or getting a CS degree”. And the answer is that the Certification is not going to help you as much as you think it will. Computer Programming is still a young field, gate keepers are just not that important yet. Becoming a Real Estate Agent requires you to get a License or Certification from the State certifying you to buy and sell houses for people. There is nothing like that for Computer Programming. Anyone with any amount of skill or experience can declare themselves a ‘Software Engineer’. There is no governing body which can ‘certify’ your skills. The current standard is Whiteboarding problems and timed hackerrank.com questions. Your return on investment from investing time into hackerrank.com will be much higher than getting a Certification.
How Software Engineers demonstrate their skill to the market is through whiteboarding questions. Get good at that first then worry about Certifications.
Does this make Certifications worthless in Software? I don’t think so, but it is not going to be worth it for junior developers trying to break into the market. One of my employers paid for me to get the ‘Certified Kubernetes Administrator’ certification from the CNCFF. Why did they do that? So that they could qualify as a CNCF partner organization and get free marketing and a better aura of expertise.
I put that certificate on my resume, but it has not gotten me any Kubernetes jobs. If your company is going to pay for a certification go for it. Otherwise, I do not think it is worthwhile for you to pay for it personally.