Highly depends many consulting shops have to have requisite amount of AWS certified professionals to maintain the partnership status with AWS. They highly value people who have appropriate AWS certs.
A related idea is to just take the 400 bucks and spend it on AWS playing around. Spin up a few Kubernetes clusters, try out their various database offerings, maybe see if you can run a load-test and get your play system to auto-scale.
That would also require keeping a sharp eye on the billing side to make sure the total cost doesn't go over $400... but, hey, that's part of the learning, too!
Also the Java Professional certificates are the big ones for Java shops.
Is worth considering other certs e.g. gcp, azure for the same reason?
Is it? I work with AWS every day, and I feel like getting the certificate will add absolutely nothing to my expertise, so it’s just wasted money.