Fully AWS Certified - The 5 Most Common Questions I Received

The 5 Most Common Questions I Received

What is the point of pursing every AWS certification?
What training material did I use?
How would you rank the AWS certifications by difficulty?
Which certification path is right for me?
How do I enter the cloud computing industry?

Introduction

After four gruelling years of studying, along with balancing my other responsibilities, I was able to achieve all of the available AWS certifications. Here is my Credly if you would like some proof. When I shared this accomplishment on LinkedIn I received a lot of visibility!

As you can imagine, this attention brought a ton of congratulations and numerous questions. Often these questions were very similar, which gave me the idea to write this post. In doing so I aim to: 1.) Save myself from repeating further; 2.) Provide helpful answers to a greater audience than my LinkedIn inbox. Without further delay the five most common questions I received are after earning all of the AWS certifications are...

1. What is the point of pursing every AWS certification?

I would firstly say that there is no career where it makes sense to obtain every single AWS certification. This is because AWS certifications are created for specific roles. For example, a Cloud Architect should not concern themselves with the Machine Learning Specialty certification (unless they're going to be architecting an ML solution).

Complete A Cloud Guru Certification Guide

With that said, I had created a personal goal for myself to achieve all of the certifications. That's because I actually found joy in learning about each and every piece of AWS. These certification exams made me confident that I was retaining the information that I was learning through my studying. They also provided some information on the "unknown unknowns" so that I could close those gaps that I might not have realized I had.

2. What training material did I use?

I mentioned the training providers that I used in my LinkedIn post as a way of giving credit, but I will go more in depth here so that you can understand how I actually used each provider.

Learning Content
I have used the following providers and believe that A Cloud Guru has the best content.

Pluralsight acquired A Cloud Guru in 2021.

A Cloud Guru's content is enough to pass any AWS certification exam. Their platform has some really nice features like hands-on labs and an exam simulator that does a really good job of simulating a real AWS exam for practice.

AWS Documentation
AWS has amazing documentation that provides great technical details. It is often critical when working in the real world or performing a hands-on lab. Although, you can easily get lost in technical details that will not help you pass an exam. For this reason I typically refer to the documentation only if A Cloud Guru suggests that a particular section is important.

AWS Whitepapers
AWS whitepapers are informational documents that describe best practices in relation to AWS services around a specific topic. Some of these papers can provide answers to the questions found on AWS exams. However, there are too many whitepapers to read them all. Again, A Cloud Guru comes to the rescue by highlighting any whitepapers that should be read for a given exam within their courses.

Practice Tests
I have used the following providers and found that Whizlabs has the best practice tests.

Whizlabs offers multiple unique tests so that you can be guaranteed to see various questions from all of the exam domains to highlight any weak spots in your knowledge.

This varies from A Cloud Guru and Cloud Academy as they only offer a single test that is generated from a question base that is larger than the number of the questions on the exam. Meaning if you take their exam multiple times you will likely see different questions, however, this can't be guaranteed, and you will definitely see repeat questions if you take the test enough times.

Unfortunately the AWS official practice tests are the worst for studying since they don't provide information on questions that are wrong or explanations.

Flashcards
I have only used Quizlet for online flashcards. Whenever I review practice tests I will look at all questions for services or concepts that I was unsure about; even if I got the question correct. Then I create flashcards to solidify that knowledge.

3. How would you rank the AWS certifications by difficulty?

ℹ️ I mentioned this earlier, yet I will reiterate it again. AWS certifications are often associated with a specific role.

That would mean that if you are proficient in that role you will most likely have a much easier time passing that exam than if you are brand new to it. If you're working as a Cloud Architect, than the architecture exams should be easier for you than a Developer taking the same exam. For this reason, these difficulty rankings are based on my personal experience. If you have a different background your opinion may vary and that's expected since you may have domain knowledge that I don't (or did not before studying for the exam).

Here is my ranking from easiest to hardest:

Cloud Practitioner
Developer Associate
Solutions Architect Associate
SysOps Administrator Associate
Security Specialty
SAP on AWS Specialty
Database Specialty
DevOps Engineer Professional
Data Analytics Specialty
Solutions Architect Professional
Advanced Networking Specialty
Machine Learning Specialty

Before I started studying for the Advanced Networking and Machine Learning certifications, I had very little knowledge in these areas. I had to do a lot of studying on the domain before I even looked at any AWS aspects of these so they were extremely difficult for me. Most of the content was brand new to me. If you have prior experience with networking or machine learning concepts you will likely have an easier time tackling these exams than I did.

4. Which certification path is right for me?

ℹ️ I recommend that everyone should start with the Cloud Practitioner certification.

I know a popular opinion in the industry is that this foundational certification is a waste of time, but I see value in it.

Provides foundational experience about cloud computing and AWS
Provides experience on the AWS exam format
Easiest and cheapest AWS exam offered
If you pass, you will receive a 50% off voucher for your next exam

The next certification exam after Cloud Practitioner will vary depending on your career goals.

You want to be an Executive

🛑 Stop! Cloud Practitioner is really all you need.

You want to be an Architect

Cloud Practitioner
Solutions Architect Associate
Security Specialty
Solutions Architect Professional

You want to be a Developer

Cloud Practitioner
Developer Associate
SysOps Administrator Associate
DevOps Engineer Professional

You want to be a Data Analyst

Cloud Practitioner
Solutions Architect Associate
Data Analytics Specialty

You want to be a Machine Learning Engineer

Cloud Practitioner
Solutions Architect Associate
Machine Learning Specialty

These are my opinions based on my experiences.

5. How do I enter the cloud computing industry?

I always say that you can enter the industry by acquiring four things.

a) Certification(s)

The cloud computing industry is composed of multiple roles. It would be better if you decided, which role you would like to target and know that some roles are more difficult to enter than others.

For instance, it may be easier to enter a company as a Cloud Developer that transitions into a Cloud Architect than it may be to enter that same company as a Cloud Architect. Typically Cloud Architects must make really important decisions that can be extremely impactful to companies. For these reasons the barrier to enter is a lot higher.

If you would like some help deciding which role is right for you then I would recommend checking out the So You Want To Be A series from A Cloud Guru.

Certifications can be great tools to help make you stand up, but it won't be enough on it's own. It's also crucial that you actually understand the content that the certification is testing or you won't get far at all. Using exam dumps (cheating) will only cheat yourself.

b) Hands-on Experience

This might be the most important. You need to actually know how to use these things you're learning so much about. If you are studying S3 then you should use S3. Create an AWS account and use it often. Use the console, the CLI, the SDK, etc. Explore the various services, features, and troubleshoot bugs when you run into them (you will run into them). This is truly the only way you will actually learn.

ℹ️ I recommend that if you're worried about using your own AWS account, you consider using a lab or playground environment that is managed by somebody else.

A Cloud Guru Labs

Cloud Academy Labs

Qwiklabs

c) Proof of Experience

Saying you can do something and proving it are very different things. Often times you will need to build a portfolio or repository that you can use to showcase your work. Most companies will not give you a technical interview where you need to login to some AWS environment and complete some task like they might do for a programming assessment. Companies will want you to provide some examples of cloud projects that you've created.

This proof can literally be a large number of things.

Write a CloudFormation template that builds AWS infrastructure
Write a shell script that uses the AWS CLI
Write a python program that reads from a DynamoDB
Write a blog about a new AWS service that you're using

If you are having a hard time thinking of some project to build you should check out the #CloudGuruChallenge from A Cloud Guru. These are realistic problems that don't provide a solution. With these challenges you will get to architect and build the solution yourself.

d) Connections

Social media like LinkedIn can be an incredible tool to help you enter the industry. If you follow the other steps and are actively interacting with the community through comments, posts, blogs, etc. then you will likely draw recruiters to you. When the recruiter reaches out to you, it places you in a much better position than as if you were to apply for the same job from their careers webpage.

You should also be able to breeze through the interview process since you will have the certifications that highlight your experience coupled with the hands-on experience to back that up. You can supply your past projects as proof of experience to the recruiters to stand out even further.

Conclusion

I hope these answers will help you in some way. I would love to hear from you and what other questions you may have for me. Good luck on your cloud journey!

If you liked this content maybe you would like to Buy Me a Coffee or connect with me on LinkedIn.

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