I got an Azure AZ-203 Developer Associate and AZ-400 DevOps Expert about 2 years ago. It took about 3 months for each exam, passed each first time. I was studying in the evening reading Microsoft docs and doing the quickstart tutorials for all of their services. https://www.isaaclevin.com/post/az-203-study-guide/ this guys guides were a massive help.

I got them because I wanted to move on from an embedded developer role to a more cloud centric role. And it worked. Having the qualifications got me through the HR wall at companies and got me into the face to face interviews.

I also think the AZ-203 is especially good because it covers so much content and forces you broaden what you know about. Like I would have avoided learning things like RBAC and OAuth if they weren't on the exam.

I got a new job and now work daily in AWS but I'm still glad I did them.