Learning tips and tricks to obtain AWS certifications

Now that we have learned about the various certifications offered by AWS, let's learn about some of the strategies we can use to get these certifications with the least amount of work possible and what we can expect as we prepare for these certifications.

Focus on one cloud provider

Some enterprises are trying to adopt a cloud-agnostic or multi-cloud strategy. The idea behind this strategy is to not have a dependency on only one cloud provider. In theory, this seems like a good idea, and some companies such as Databricks, Snowflake, and Cloudera offer their wares so that they can run using the most popular cloud providers.

However, this agnosticism comes with some difficult choices. One way to implement this strategy is to choose the least common denominator, for example, only using compute instances so that workloads can be deployed on various cloud platforms. Implementing this approach means that you cannot use the more advanced services offered by cloud providers. For example, using AWS Glue in a cloud-agnostic fashion is quite difficult, if not impossible.

Another way that a multi-cloud strategy can be implemented is by using the more advanced services, but this means that your staff will have to know how to use these services for all the cloud providers you decide to use. To use the common refrain, you will end up being a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Similarly, it is difficult to be a cloud expert across vendors at an individual level. It is recommended to pick one cloud provider and try to become an expert on that one stack. AWS, Azure, and GCP, to name the most popular options, offer an immense amount of services that continuously change and get enhanced, and they keep adding more services. Keeping up with one of these providers is not an easy task. Keeping up with all three, in my opinion, is close to impossible.

Pick one and dominate it.

Focus on the Associate-level certifications

As we mentioned before, there's quite a bit of overlap between the Associate-level certifications. In addition, the jump in difficulty between the Associate-level certifications and the Professional-level ones is quite steep.

I highly recommend sitting at least two, if not all three, of the Associate-level certifications before attempting the Professional-level certifications. Not only will this method prepare you for the Professional certifications, but having multiple Associate certifications will make you stand out against others that only have one Associate-level certification.

Get experience wherever you can

AWS recommends having 1 year of experience before taking the Associate-level certifications and 2 years of experience before you sit the Professional-level certifications. This may seem like a catch-22 situation. How can you get experience if you are not certified?

There are a couple of loopholes in this recommendation. First, it's a recommendation and not a mandatory requirement. Second, they mention that experience is required, but not necessarily work experience. This means that you can get experience as you are training and studying for the exam.

I can tell you from personal experience that work experience is not required. I personally passed the two Professional certifications before I engaged in my first AWS project.

Let's spend some time now addressing some of the questions that frequently come up while preparing to take these certifications.