One of the questions that comes up when I talk to colleagues that joined Salesforce Consulting recently is: “Which path should I take in my certification journey?”
When I started Salesforce the Paths were simple: Admin -> Advanced Admin, Developer -> Advanced Developer on top of that Salesforce introduced Service and Sales Cloud Consultants.
With the much richer ecosystem present today Salesforce as expanded and specialist even more. Today Salesforce offers kind of 3 or 4 major tracks:
On the Force Platform
- The Developer / Architect Path
- The Consulting Path with different specializations in the areas Service, Sales and Community (Not to forget CPQ)
In the Marketing Cloud
- The Marketing Cloud Consultant Path
- The Pardot Consulting Path
And for Comemrce
- The Commerce Cloud Developer
Compared to some years ago the Salesforce landscape has changed and more certifications became available. I personally suggest to go one of the following routes:
Platform Consultant Journey
Architect Journey
Marketer Journey
Ecommerce Journey
Simple-Force.com 