I'm still trying to study for AWS Cloud Practitioner, because my employee uses AWS and I wouldn't bother otherwise. TBH I'm really struggling to finish the course due to the fact I find the subject matter incredibly dull - it's just a whirlwind tour of all the major AWS services. Learning OS internals, networking, software architecture, etc. would be more useful and interesting...
Note that I have recently taken and passed the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam, and am currently studying for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect exam. We’re doing study groups at work, based around the material from acloud.guru, which is available to us for free thanks to our employer. I’m leading the AWS CCP study group, and a co-worker of mine is leading the AWS CSA-A study group, which I’m also in.
Yes, it’s a lot of random stuff to remember, much of which doesn’t seem to have a great deal of bearing on the AWS technology that we use on a daily basis in our real work, which I’ve been doing for years. But I am still learning a lot, and I’m convinced that there are important gaps that are being filled in my education, thanks to the classes we’re taking and certifications we’re getting.
I do find that I can listen to the video class material at 1.5x normal speed, and still follow along. It helps things pass along quicker. But for the CCP exam, my first time around I got about halfway through before I gave up and just took the exam cold, because I kept falling asleep during the videos. This second time around, I have to pay more attention, because I’m leading the study group, and I have to help teach this material to others. I did pass the exam the first time, but I plan on taking it again, because I want a higher score.
Procrastinating on studying for my AWS certification next week. I was unemployed for several months of this year and knowledge of AWS or any of the major cloud providers was the most glaring hole on my resume. Happily, my new employer pays for AWS training for all of its employees, so that hole is being filled... except, as always, it's way more fun reading HN than studying :/
Bootcamps don't teach you AWS because that would cost them money and eat into their profits if they showed anything useful. Plus they probably don't want to be on the hook for some student goofing up and running up a huge AWS bill.
I get alumni surveys all the time asking what things they should teach and the one thing that is consistently never on the list is ops/cloud-related training.
There are a number of courses to prep for AWS certifications (example: Cloud Gurus), but the are heavily focused on actual test prep and less so on actually using AWS to build something.
I generally don't care about certifications, but was convinced to try the AWS Solutions Architect path.
While I'm still studying, I've found many knowledge gaps due learning things through experience. I guess studying something in a structured way definitely has value.
I do. I only want to learn things that are useful though. There's not a lot of opportunities to do anything interesting on this team. I am working on renewing my AWS certs. I might try going for the professional level cert.
Got the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification two years ago.
I started working more with AWS and felt like there was a bunch of services and concepts that I didn't know. My employer paid for a three day course and the examination fee was included in the price.
It was useful mostly in giving me more confidence in my role, but I also got a better understanding of the huge AWS ecosystem. Helps us with clients sometimes that I'm "certified"...
The course was extremely boring (a lot of reading aloud from the textbook), but forced me to focus on the subject for three whole days. I also spent a few hours studying the textbook on my own and spent a few hours on parts of a Udemy course.
I took a few of these exams and I think if you can pass them you really know something about AWS.
But I don't like them. They are very broad and often ask quesions about legacy services. You don't need to know all the intrinsics of EC2/VPCs if all you use is Lambda.
If you want to get a good overview over AWS tech, take the associate exams.
If you want to learn every detail about AWS, take the speciality and professional exams.
But if you wanna build something good quickly, your time and money is better invested in courses focusing on specific problems or technologies.
Have your tried reading the AWS docs? As in actually spending some time to read the whole content? They have good descriptions, many guides, step-by-step instructions for simple examples, etc. You can go a long way with just those pages.
If you want something more hand-holding, A Cloud Guru courses are pretty good.
But on another side after checking few flashcards it seems you will turn into an AWS Marketing Parrot, more than really learning skills
I have a feeling that's partly the intent of the whole certifications program. I'm someone who has no use for AWS (nor interest in any cloud stuff, really) and has never even looked at any of their services in detail, but was once challenged to try one of their practice exams, and recall getting about 75% of the questions right simply by educated guessing with a perspective of "which of these answers seems to make sense and would make the most $$$ for Amazon?"
I viewed them as a guided learning curriculum to keep me focused whilst learning AWS. Otherwise, i'd have drifted off down deep rabbit holes playing with some of the more exotic services and missed the 'boring' but most useful services to learn about.
Have previously held, CDA and SAA but haven't bothered renewing them.
I had all the AWS certs and I can say it's a total waste of time. These certifications (AWS) probably is for sale engineer than a engineer that really do the works. But I had to get the certs in order to become an AWS partner :(.
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