Certification Path for Salesforce Developers | How to become a Salesforce Developer 

Agreed, experience is more important than certification and often speaks volumes about a person's ability to perform in a role.

So the guy goes the extra mile as a Junior Developer to get the PD2 cert and you attack him for it. You don't have to have job experience in order to learn certain technologies. You mostly need the correct amount of time to understand things well enough to be proficient with it. This can be accomplished through deliberate practice outside of having to work for a specific company. Before I was hired as a software engineer, I completed a lot of college and personal software engineering projects which helped me get my first job. I also had advanced programming certifications under m belt. Should I have not got those certifications and understood the information at such a level that I could both build projects and pass advanced certifications? I understand your point but to count someone out simply because that person got a cert without having on the "job" experience seems very wrong. Why? Because in 2024 you can still get a nice amount of experience coding with Trailhead free developer edition. If anything, maybe the guy doesn't get any points for passing the cert, but I personally wouldn't hold it against him.

if you think on the job is the only kind of developing experience a person can get get then you clearly lack development experience