Managing My AWS Certified Status

Assessing where I stand As of writing this, I’ve managed to obtain the Cloud Practitioner and Certified Developer - Associate. Unfortunately, the last time I sat an exam was in November of 2022. Meaning if I would like to maintain my certified status, I’ll need to sit at least one exam before November of this year. Why stay certified in the first place? There are simple things like the shiny badge, certified swag, and the certified lounge at Re:Invent. But personally I believe going through the process leads me to creating better solutions for my users. Getting certified through AWS goes beyond memorizing pricing models and feature lists. To score well on the exams, you have to spend time getting to know the services to their core. Understanding what they seek to accomplish for you and your users. Having this knowledge while developing solutions for people can be a massive difference maker. What certs do I want/need to get? AWS maintains this very helpful page that lists what you would need to accomplish in order to maintain a given certification. While it looks very nice, I’ll save you the click and put the information relevant to my situation below. Based on this, at a minimum, I would need to sit the Developer Associate exam again in order to maintain my two current certifications going into the future. But I’m not here to do the minimum. Therefore, my only option is to sit the DevOps - Professional exam

Feb 26, 2025 - 18:30

Assessing where I stand

As of writing this, I’ve managed to obtain the Cloud Practitioner and Certified Developer - Associate. Unfortunately, the last time I sat an exam was in November of 2022. Meaning if I would like to maintain my certified status, I’ll need to sit at least one exam before November of this year.

Why stay certified in the first place?

There are simple things like the shiny badge, certified swag, and the certified lounge at Re:Invent. But personally I believe going through the process leads me to creating better solutions for my users. Getting certified through AWS goes beyond memorizing pricing models and feature lists. To score well on the exams, you have to spend time getting to know the services to their core. Understanding what they seek to accomplish for you and your users. Having this knowledge while developing solutions for people can be a massive difference maker.

What certs do I want/need to get?

AWS maintains this very helpful page that lists what you would need to accomplish in order to maintain a given certification. While it looks very nice, I’ll save you the click and put the information relevant to my situation below.

Based on this, at a minimum, I would need to sit the Developer Associate exam again in order to maintain my two current certifications going into the future.

But I’m not here to do the minimum.

Therefore, my only option is to sit the DevOps - Professional exam