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There are many ways to advance your career and earning potential.  A degree is one path.  However, technical certifications tend to be easier to earn and equally as valuable.  The process of going through a certificate track is an excellent way to learn new skills and validate them for others.  The challenge with this path is to select the technical certifications that are best for pay and the latest jobs.

AWS Solution Architect/Google Cloud Architect

Everyone has heard about the Cloud.  Unfortunately, that does not equate to a lot of highly-skilled resources being available for the needed work.  While there are several Cloud vendors in the industry, the Amazon and Google platforms are the most popular.  There is a lot of work out there for those that pursue it.  On the other hand, there are a lot of people that desire those jobs.  That combination makes these perfect areas to acquire a technical certification.  The more advanced your certificate, the better.  The positions you win can be long-term and high-paying, along with being cutting edge.  These technologies are also here to stay.  Therefore, the time and resources you invest in these certifications will have plenty of time to provide a return. 

https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-solutions-architect-professional/

Scrum Master

The "Agile" methodology and scrums, in particular, are prevalent.  Thus, certifications related to them are in demand.  This area is one where a lot of people think they can do the work.  However, they do not completely understand what needs to be done.  The argument against these sorts of technical certifications is that the underlying concepts are not that hard to understand.

Nevertheless, it seems few people spend the time doing so, and that makes certifications valuable to employers.  Rather than building some form of technical evaluation, a hiring manager can fall back on requiring a certified scrum master.  That provides them the comfort of having someone that knows what they are doing to run the ever-increasingly necessary scrum process.

CISSP/CRISC

Security is a huge topic.  It even spills out into the non-technical world on a daily basis.  This fact makes the security-related jobs highly visible, and they have commensurate pay.  While any security certificate is useful, these high-end technical certifications can kick-start your career.  They are becoming similar to technical degrees, six-sigma, PMP, and other niche certifications that are often requirements to even apply for a position.