Came across this recently.. and the “middle ground” comment sort of hit home.

MS was breaking the certs apart by technology, and went hog-wild in splitting up SQL Server operations in the 2016 cert paths (there’s like 5 MCSA’s with like 10 exams and it’s confusing what to take to move up to an MCSE).

But, they have a roadmap for 2019 certs, and they reorg’ed it to be around job roles… and there’s no longer SQL Server.

Things fall under Azure / Cloud or 365 stuff.

Azure has a Azure Data Engineer role. That’s pretty much it.

Everything else is Dev Ops, Admin, etc.

I have NO CLUE where SQL Server fits into all of that.

I’m trying to get certs to get my foot in the door at jobs, b/c apparently graduating with a masters in IS and having years of prior industry experience isn’t enough to get employed these days. (I’m too generalist). I’m trying to pick a specialization to focus on, but MS keeps moving the target.. and it’s like SQL Server is the red-headed step child of the MS world now. (Everything’s all “cloud” this and “nosql” that.)

I’m not sure if I should pursue it or not.