Disclaimer: While studying for the exam I was working Amazon as a Software Engineer, not part of AWS but Prime Video. Given that I largely didn’t have any special AWS resources or knowledge. I did however work work with AWS technologies for quite some time especially CloudFormation, Dynamo and EC2.
Here we go, a couple of weeks ago I finally got around to taking my AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional exam and therefor I am now certified.
I decided to take the exam mostly because I was looking for a reason to invest the time to really get to know what services are available and get a good overview of AWS in general (at least at this given point in time since AWS changes very quickly after all). Given this background I have to say the certification is well worth it, it is a great motivation to get studying and is a good way to guide the learning towards the more relevant (less buzzwords more value) parts of AWS.
My most reliable resource has been A Cloud Guru, which provide a quite comprehensive course with exercises, which make studying less dry but also are actually valuable in getting to know AWS better. I don’t think they are required to pass the exam, but given my motivation of getting to know AWS better they most certainly were helpful! Besides A Cloud Guru, I mostly ended up reading white-papers, and watching reinvent videos. Personally I found the white-papers mostly useful to pickup on the terms used, I don’t think the contain much new knowledge outside of that. I think as with most AWS exams the main enemy is time, with each question allowing for on average 2 minutes. It comes down to knowing what you know well and plow through those question quickly to have time for the ones which are less clear and require more analysis. While taking the exam I flagged multiple questions I was unsure about, but didn’t have time to go back, it was a close one for me.
Overall would I take it again: Yes, Is it worth it? Depending on the motivation for me it was. Thanks to A Cloud Guru for putting together a worth while course.
Code from the sideline 