What Tech certifications do you care about and do certifications add any value?

I have two Drupal certifications, and I have not met one Drupal developer with a certification that was clueless. It's a highly niche certification, that will help land someone a highly niche job.

That said, not all certifications are equal, and it really depends on the niche you are in or aiming to be in.

My previous employer was paying for a bunch of us to get certified, but not giving us any form of raise or bonus for doing so. Needles to say, most of us left in the following months for higher pay.

Certifications are valuable for consulting firms. If you're certified, they can charge more to their clients. Will they pass some of those additional gains to you remains to be seen, and probably depends on the firm.

Does the piece of paper add any value? No. There are far too many people that have certifications that who aren’t necessarily skilled in that subject. Same goes for University, the certificate at the end doesn’t prove that a person knows what they’re doing, more that they know how to pass an exam/course.
That’s not to say that the content taught isn’t helpful, just that it’s not a clear recognition of skill or ability.
When looking for jobs, it is a nice foot in the door but it’s only useful to get past the Hr step.

My justification for what I’ve said is that I recently had to do a Microsoft certification so that my company can keep their gold partnership. So I’m now an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional), what this doesn’t tell you is that I literally googled the exam name and found the majority of the questions asked over the past few years and memorised the answers. Would I have been fine without Googling the answers? Probably. But I’m just making the point of that certifications aren’t a recognition of skill.

In my opinion of course 😊