Early in my career I stacked up certs. I’d usually get ones that were relevant to projects I was working on. I’d find sometimes (again earlier in my career) that I needed a combination of structured learning to complement concepts in large projects I was working on at the time.

This led to more responsibility and more pay but it took a lot of my own time. As I’m senior in my career now I sometimes wonder if it was worth it as a trade off for all of the certifications I earned.