As someone who is very “certified” when it comes to cloud, I can tell you that certifications mean absolutely nothing and can easily be gamed. I went through the certifications route only as a guided learning path so I would know what I didn’t know. Anyone can pass a multiple choice certification. I got my first AWS certification without ever logging in to AWS.

But it was never to get a job or a promotion. I was already the Dev lead at the company working on an on prem system and they wanted to “move to the cloud”. I just wanted to get an overview of the landscape.

As far back as 2000, “brain dumps” of MS certifications were a thing.