Ask HN: Do tech certifications matter nowadays for hiring?

I just participated in a hiring cycle at my company for a junior data scientist and nobody (candidate, HR, hiring manager) mentioned certificates at all, so consider that a medium negative signal. All our interviewees had a DS masters and most had relevant experience, so hard to see how a certificate would move the needle

With now AI existing more and more in this world. Yes.

A CV is not enough, previous projects isn't enough and references aren't enough and you can forget about a cover letter.

At the current pace, courses get out of date a bit too fast. I don’t see any reason to take them seriously as long as this dynamic holds. Do a course if you think it has some valuable content or maybe do some and get certificates to get your first job, but that’s the extent of it.

"AI" is enough of a buzzword today that a certification of any kind might give you an edge in getting your resume noticed by whatever automated or manual means a company uses to whittle through the job applications. That said, if your certificate isn't paired with some practical industry experience, it might not be the most credible look.

As far as certificates in general go, they can give you an edge in getting hired in certain contexts. I believe that some consultancies require a certain number of their developers to be certified to remain in some partnership agreements with different web-services or customers. There are also certain certifications that I believe carry some genuine respect in the industry: possibly CCIE as one example.

Certifications are a good way to show that you may have that skill or be familiar with it. However, if you can point to work experience with a skill, such as AI, it will do the same thing and also show you have real world experience.