My Golden Path To AWS Developer Certification
Prolog
As a DevOps & Cloud consultant, I am required to understand the
developers’ objectives and their perception for the way to obtain
them. Accordingly, follow their thought process and continuously
introduce them with cutting edge solutions that cater to their
needs.
Through my interaction with the AWS Platform, I have explored
its unique and effective set of services to expand developers’
options, mainly focusing on serverless architecture.
To understand the potential solutions for my clients
I am constantly required to take a deep dive into this everchanging frontier, I
have decided to professionally explore the AWS Developer Tools
arena and obtain AWS Developer official certification.
If you are a developer who is not yet familiar with AWS Cloud, I would
recommend beginning with the Solution Architect -
Associate certification, which is a much-preferred entry point to
the AWS world.
You can find more details here:
Content Outline
Before we dive into this article, please review the AWS Certified Developer exam blueprint.
My practical “Golden Path”
So you reviewed the exam blueprint and you are probably a little frightened, disoriented, and don’t know where to begin. Don’t worry, I will present to you my Golden Path for passing the exam successfully!
My “Golden Path” comprised of the following steps:
- Comprehensive understanding of the test’s material — Course
- Continuous memorization
- Focusing on the current cardinal exam’s topics
- Practice exams
- Tips for the exam
Course
Studying the topics for the exam on your own could be very hard. The number of nuances, offerings, and details is just too much to handle on your own, thus a course that will summarize everything for you is mandatory.
While scouting for the best course online, I was amazed to encounter this outstanding course by Stéphane Maarek that is by far the best course for this specific certification (as of June 2020).
Stéphane is a very methodical and articulated instructor, his course’s lectures are well explained and well demonstrated.
Nevertheless, be prepared to invest a considerable amount of time in this course.
The new version of the course is about 30 hours long, which is by far the longest course in this segment. The course costs around 14$ and worth every penny!
Memorization
You need to continuously memorize what you have learned in the course to the level of the details!
The exam strives to see whether you know the technical subtleties of the cloud offerings, a conceptual understanding alone would not suffice.
To achieve this mastery of cloud offerings, you will need to memorize a lot of material.
There are three popular ways to effectively memorize the material:
- Choose a “Cheat Sheet” and follow it:
- Digital Cloud (I liked this one better but both of them are good)
- Tutorial Dojo
2. Flashcards
Create your own stack of flashcards with key elements that you wish to memorize or use other people’s stacks instead.
3. Write your own notes
- Digital notes- Udemy allows you to write notes on top of the video lectures of the course and review them later in a clear interface, which is nice if you are fond of it.
- Hard copy notes- Print the course’s PDF and write on top of the slides every clarification that you found important and every exam tip that the instructor tells you to take into consideration.
I found it to be the most effective way because it kept me concentrated at all times and helped me to review and continuously memorize the details of each lecture.
Focusing on the current cardinal exam’s topics
This is one of the most important sections that many people tend to ignore, which is very unfortunate.
When you completed Stéphane course check out this Reddit thread
It offers many test-taking information, tactics, and methods.
In order to pass the test you should have a complete understating of the following services:
- Dynamo DB
- Lambda
- API Gateway
- Security and encryption
Besides those, all the other services tested are frequently changing.
Therefore, when you survey the Reddit thread mentioned above, lookup for “Exam feedback” posts in order to understand what are the current featured topics that you will need to focus on while going into the exam.
Practice exams
Sign up for the Tutorial Dojo practice exams.
The practice exams offered there are slightly harder than the real ones but they will give you a very good idea of what to expect from the real exam.
The practice exams cost 15$.
Tips for the exam
- Do not sign-up for the exam unless you are sure of your knowledge- Each exam costs 150$ and you will need to wait for two weeks in order to get a chance to retake it.
Better safe than sorry. - Test center- If possible, take the exam in a test center. There are various advantages to it, but the most important one is that (in contrast to the home exam format) you are able to go to the lavatory.
It may seem funny but believe me that you do not want to analyze serverless applications scenarios with a full bladder, while time is running backward :) - Do not linger- If you are reading a question for more than a minute just flag it and move on, it is very easy to be sucked into an interesting and complex scenario question, but before you know it your time will be drained.
- Time extension- if you are not a native English speaker, you are eligible for a 30-minute time extension.
For more details click on this link.
Epilog
I am sure that if you will stick to the “Golden Path” game plan you will be just fine!
I hope you have found it helpful, please feel free to contact me with any questions.
Good luck!
Or Maman
www.linkedin.com/in/ormaman
Or.maman@nice.com
