The journey to get all AWS Certifications in 5 months time

In January, I was existed getting all Azure certifications available on the market. It was an important milestone for me.

Another milestone that I had was to obtain all AWS Certifications by the end of June. Things were harder for me because I have 11 years of experience on Azure vs. just a few years on AWS. Additionally, I worked closely with Microsoft Azure Product teams in the last few years, and I knew well the capabilities and limitations of the platform.

Source: Credly

I will try below to respond to the most common question that I receive related to the training journey:

(1) What kind of materials you use to prepare for the exam?

To prepare for AWS certifications, I used a mix between:

• O’Reilly books and video content
• O’Reilly Crash Courses
• Udemy content
• AWS Whitepapers
• AWS on-demand videos are available on the APN portal

In the last months, I notified that the cloud content available on the O’Reilly platform increase. Besides books, they added video training and even crash classes. The quality of content available on the platform is amazing, and I highly recommend checking it.

(2) How long it takes to prepare for each exam?

The total time that I spend for each AWS certification is between 1–3 weeks, depending on the exam. For the Professional ones, I invested around 80 hours of preparation, for the rest of them between 20–40 hours.

(3) Do you use dump questions?

Yes. I found useful dump questions on Udemy and O’Reilly (for Azure). Once you cover the exam content, dump questions are a gold mine to better understand the cloud functionality and combine different services and features. Usually, one day before the exam, I invest 4–6 hours in looking at dump questions, but not more.

When you review dump questions, don’t focus on memorizing them. The main focus is to understand the response. This is a good technique to learn and better understand cloud concepts.

(4) What learning tech are you using?

For AWS, I used a learning tech based on analogy. For most AWS services and features, I created an analogy between Azure and AWS and their differences.

The tech that I used is described in the Active Use of Analogy Method With Technology in Education book and other similar books and whitepapers.

If you have questions or want to find more about preparing for AWS certification, drop me a line on LinkedIn.