Time to get Certified in the Cloud
So you want to work in the Cloud? Prove it.
If you are interested in a career working with DevOps or Cloud Infrastructure, one thing you need to expect is a highly accelerated pace of innovation. Even for those of us that spend all day, every day working with and thinking about cloud technologies, it's dizzying to keep up with the changes, feature releases, and evolution of services.
The pereptual change results in a big problem with Cloud: Most people are learning on the job, with little by way of foundational knowledge, and with significant gaps in their understanding. One way you can close this gap for your own career and differentiate yourself from others in the field is by focusing on AWS exam certification tracks that are meant to establish and test knowledge of key technologies.
As an AWS Certification Subject Matter Expert, I'm involved in the process of helping write certification exams, and I can honestly say that it's hard to imagine a more rigorous and well-thought out process of exam development. Each question and every answer is scrutinized by a highly skilled group of people for accuracy and relevancy, asking such questions as: Is this a trick question (if it is, it's thrown out)? Is it actually testing what it's meant to test? Is this something that the person on the other side of the keyboard should know?
In my role as a consultant for Small to Medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that are hungry for people with AWS skills, I often assist with the hiring process. THE VERY FIRST THING I LOOK FOR is an AWS certification. Not because it tells me everything I need to know, but for me, it answers the question: Is this candidate passionate enough about cloud technologies to have taken the time and effort to study for and to have passed a very relevant exam?
It also sets the stage for the technical portion of the interview, as I'm going to ask some targeted questions that I would expect anyone who passed the exam to know (One of my go-to questions is: What is the difference between a public and a private subnet?)
Exam time
I'm often asked "Which exam should I take as my first one?" I would suggest the Solutions Architect Associate, which covers a broad range of foundational AWS topics. The SysOps Administrator Associate is also an excellent exam, and there is actually a fair amount of topical overlap between these two.
If you want to take multiple exams, consider spacing them out a little bit: All exams now require recertification after 3 years, so if you cram for a couple of exams at once, you will have to repeat that process in 3 years, which can be a bit stressful now that you have that amazing full-time SA or DevOps position.
Time to study...and get your hands dirty.
Along with the AWS training offerings, there are a number of third-party resources you can pay for to assist in studying for the AWS exam, and I'm not going to recommend one over the other. Regardless of which one you choose, you should leverage all of the free AWS resources available and get your hands on the keyboard:
Read every whitepaper and all FAQs AWS recommends for the particular exam
Take all the practice exams you can, and review all sample questions available.
Get hands-on experience. I cannot stress the importance of this. Take extra time if needed in preparation for the exam and use your own AWS account to spin up resources. It may cost you a few dollars beyond the free tier, but that's literally all it will cost, and given your time invested in studying and cost of the exam and exam prep, it will amount to a rounding error and is well worth the expense. Just be sure to destroy all the resources when you are done!
Happy Studying!