AWS Certifications
The value and when to pursue
Hello avatars and anons, Celt here to talk about AWS certifications. Over the last year or so I have acquired most of the AWS certifications, so I can share some of the lessons I learned along the way.
WHY
I wanted to be more involved in the cloud engineering and cloud migration efforts occurring at my company. I have had some AWS experience, but nothing close to meaningful production experience. Bull has mentioned something like this before, but when you are trying to get a job or get a new responsibility in your role, you want to show the shot caller that you are not risky and this will not blow up in their face. You want to present yourself as the least risky option that can do the job. The way for me to do that was to shove some certifications in management’s face, so they could justify giving me these responsibilities.
WHAT
To date i have the Certified Cloud Practitioner, Solutions Architect Associate, Developer Associate, SysOps Associate, Security Specialty, and Networking Specialty. I probably went a little overboard but I needed the last two specialty certs for political capital and to leave the door open for a shift to Cyber/Info Security (higher pay generally). If people are wondering in order of least hardest to hardest i would rank: Cloud Pract, Developer, SysOps, Solutions Architect, Security, Networking. Security is probably one of the easier specialty exams, while the networking exam is known to be one of the more difficult exams.
WHEN
My first exam was in Jan 2021 so just over a year for 7 certifications. I was not trying to get perfects on the exam or deeply know the content from each exam, this sort of depends on your goals and motives.
RESULTS
I used the certifications in part to negotiate a raise for myself - now doing cloud work means more $. Additionally, I used the two specialty exams as reasoning to lead a cohort in my firm’s cloud academy (which is going to be used for my next raise). I am now more aligned with cloud work, which is what I want. For my specific situation cloud work is high visibility and impact, which is better for my career. So in recap to expand my job responsibilities in a high growth and visibility area and then use that to negotiate a raise.
What Not to Expect
Certifications are not golden tickets to the cloud chocolate factory. If you are trying to get a job in cloud you need to be able to speak about the technical topics, but also provide commentary on production insights and give the guise you have experience. Experience is still the most important thing. If you are applying internally or looking to get an expansion of responsibilities I would suggest you follow a similar path to me. Be in the higher performing buckets, have some kind of certification to justify this expansion, sell yourself to the decision maker. Think of the certifications as a way to open doors or get interviews. From there it will be up to you to ‘sell’ yourself. Raptor has a good post on how to fake experience and sell yourself: (towards the bottom)
Goals For Certification
a cloud job (either new job, or shift to a cloud division)
Justify an increase in responsibilities
Raise
If you do not think those 3 outcomes are in your goals, I probably wouldnt purse these certifications. It would make more sense to invest the time into WiFi money or other skills. To really justify the time, the impact needs to be captured above. I would not do them just to do them.
ROADMAP
For most I would recommend starting with the Cloud Practitioner. The exam is very easy and will net you a 50% coupon to use on your next exam. If you turbo you should be able to study for this exam in 2 weeks and take it in the third. I like this because it establishes your fundamentals and gets you used to the exam environment. After that I would recommend Solutions Architect → Developer → SysOps Associate exams. Once you have the associate cores passed, it becomes more specific to your needs. If you turbo you can probably have the associate core done in <6 months. My next post will be about your game plan for each exam.