Are AWS Certifications Worth It? 🤔 [Featuring Dylan Albertazzi]

are cloud certifications worth it are they just a waste of time and money that would be better spent elsewhere that's the question that i want to explore today i don't have any of these certifications personally but i know many people who do today's video features dylan albertazzi who recently got not one but two certifications from amazon web services and used those certifications to help get his foot in the door for interviews at his top joyce companies i've asked him to share his experience going through that process dylan also recently started his own youtube channel which will be linked in the description below so make sure to check that out after watching the video at this point i'll pass it off to dylan hey thanks for having me sid i'm really excited to be here and share about aws certifications as an early career cloud professional i recently got two aws certifications the cloud practitioner and the solutions architect associate and today i'm going to be sharing with you guys how they can lead to higher paying jobs how to study for them and how they can direct your career path quick update guys since filming this video about a week ago i've accepted a job offer as a cloud software engineer i say this not to brag but to show that the stuff that we're talking about work for me and i hope it works for you i'm in my final term of college studying computer science and mechanical engineering and as i approach graduation i think a lot about my career if i'm really honest with myself i would really love a high paying job and i also really want to make an impact and now the problem for me is that i never got any internship experience i wanted to but it just never worked out and without that experience it's a lot harder to stand out in a pool of applications for the high-impact high-paying jobs getting aws certified kind of takes the place of an internship because it provides the credibility that employers want to see before they hire you also not a lot of college kids are getting them so it's a good way to stand out aws offers three certification paths and a number of specialty certifications each path has three levels foundational associate and professional at the foundational level the cloud practitioner cert is the same for everyone the higher the level the more attractive you are to employers and the higher salary you can get according to an independent salary survey by jefferson frank 70 of aws professionals reported a salary increase of up to 20 percent after passing their certification i'm going to break down the differences of each path in simple terms first is the solutions architect and now this is the path that i'm going down this one focuses more with designing the solution and working with the client to figure out what's going to work best for their business i was attracted to this because it's more high level and you get to work directly with the client which is something i love second is operations they focus on the deployment and the management of the system the developer focuses on developing and debugging applications if you're seriously considering your path definitely read the full description for the associate level exam pdf that's going to be posted in the description that's going to give you a lot more fine-grained detail to make the choice that's right for you all three paths have a lot of overlap and many people get certifications in multiple paths so don't feel like you're going to get locked in the first one you choose so how much time does it take for me it took about two months to get both my certifications so the cloud practitioner took me about eight hours to study for and then the solutions architect associate took about a hundred hours the strategy i used which worked out pretty well was i took two hours every day to go through a course studying for the exam my number one tip is to actually follow along with whatever examples they're going through in the course if you want to learn this stuff you have to get your hands dirty aws has a really generous free tier so you can do so with minimal to no out of pocket cost make sure you're tearing down any resources you use to avoid a surprise bill to give you an idea for me even going through all these courses and having my own live web app it's been less than ten dollars the whole time i've had aws now you're probably wondering what course to take and let me tell you the one you take makes a huge difference and don't worry we'll link all the best courses in the description for the cloud practitioner i used aws's free cloud practitioner essentials video course for this one it was just videos and a practice exam at the end because it was a smaller test this was enough for me however just videos aren't nearly enough for associate level and higher aws has its own in-person and live online training for each exam they're probably great the only issue is that they cost thousands of dollars save the money and use a cloud guru for your associate level certs i use them for my solutions architect and my twin brother use them for his developer associate and we both passed on the first try they constantly quiz you and have many labs where you follow along in the aws console without this i wouldn't have passed no question there are other courses out there but a cloud guru is the gold standard you do pay 32 dollars per month however when you think of it as an investment it's more than worth it i'm graduating in about a month and a half so i'm on the job hunt but not just any job hunt we want to move back to my hometown of bend oregon which is what we want for our family but there's only a handful of tech companies the great news is that i've gotten interviews with both of these companies and i have no doubt it's because of my certifications i know this because i've applied for countless interviews with little to no response the cert got me in the door but it definitely wasn't a golden ticket into the job the cert proved knowledge but both interviews were much more interested in my experience in my case i drew experience from my personal project grub guide grub guide is a restaurant suggestion app i built in the aws cloud and architected with best practices if you don't have much work experience build a solution to a real world problem in aws and use best practices that way you have something to show employers getting aws certifications is a lot of work but has provided me the opportunity to get interviews with the two companies i'm excited about in bed if you're contemplating your career path or looking for a new way to move forward i hope that this serves as a blueprint to get you from where you are to where you want to be like i said earlier a few days after i filmed this video i got the job as a cloud software engineering band i hope that my story can give you insights on what it takes to be a cloud software engineer feel free to ask specific questions in the comments and i'll do my best to quickly get back to you finally i recently started my own youtube channel that explores how technology especially cloud computing enables business if you head over there watch what is aws if you're interested in getting a cloud certification that's it for today i hope to see you on my channel soon we'll see you next time

Channel: DevOps Directive

Views: 39,053

Keywords: amazon web services, aws certification, aws cloud, aws certified, aws cloud practitioner, aws solution architect certification, cloud certifications for beginners, junior cloud engineer, junior software engineer, a cloud guru, aws exam, aws jobs, aws training, aws certification path

Id: 1ev7z4zmRKw

Length: 7min 12sec (432 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021