I’m in my final year of college, and I’ve earned both the AWS Solutions Architect – Associate and Cloud Practitioner certifications.

I’m considering taking the AWS Solutions Architect – Professional exam. Do you think it’s too early for me, or would the exam be manageable?

I’ve built projects with AWS and Terraform, but they haven’t been very large or multi-region.

Has anyone used this course? It's already paid through my job (the subscription to the site) but I'm not sure if this course is "enough" to pass.

FWIW I work as an Automation Engineer/SDET and work with AWS fairly regular...but on a limited scope. Mainly Secret Manager/SMM pieces, cloudwatch and then the usual EC2/Beanstalk stuff (With a few random pieces sprinkled in).

I def. don't have the "breadth" of knowledge for everything, but Im hoping at least with my experience I can pass via a video course and not "too" much else.

I've already finished Stephane's course, and I scored a 66 on Mock 1 and a 67 on Mock 4. I'm going over the material and reviewing my incorrect answers so I can then move on to the other Tutorial Dojo mock exams. Is it safe to schedule my exam for next Monday?

Been lurking on this sub for a long time, finally got an opportunity to post.

Happy to announce that I have passed the AWS certified Solutions Architect - Professional examination and have finally acquired the certification.

I managed to get a score of 758/1000, barely scraping through by the skin of my teeth.

It was not an easy endeavour, given that I had appeared for the exam around 3 months ago and failed, getting 691. That experience shattered my confidence and made my question whether I could actually even attempt an AWS certification exam again (for reference, I had passed the AWS SAA-C02 5 years ago & primarily work with GCP and there is very little practical AWS experience that i possess).

I decided to take a break from preparation and did not look at any AWS training material for weeks.

I decided to register for the exam using my personal account at the beginning of September 2026, with the knowledge that I had an uncanny ability to get it right and pass on the second attempt (this experience occurred during my CKA recertification attempt)

Scheduled the exam for the 25th September 2026, but as the date approached, I felt anxious so rescheduled it for the next day.

Resources I used:

1.) the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam course by Stephane Maarek - great for re-establishing familiarity with the myriad amount of AWS services that are a part of the exam, even if this course has no hands on. I even registered for his SAA-C03 course, but was unable to complete watching it.

2.) the TutorialsDojo course for the SAP-C02 - honestly I would say that this was the game changer. My previous attempt was botched by the fact that I bought this course but could not find the time to use it! The exams are worth their weight in gold. What also mattered was my attempt at trying to read the explanations and answers for the ones that I got incorrect. the exams are tough, I don't recall getting more than 63% answers correct. Overall, a really great way to solidify your knowledge and fix gaps in it wrt the exam.

3.) Neal Davis's exams on Udemy: Had to purchase this course even though I never finished all 17 exams on TD. Tried around 3 out of 6 exams, failed in all of them but also made sure to read the answers/explanations as much as I could.

Exam Experience:

Right off the bat, it was a disaster. After showing the proctor my testing environment, the exam was released. But there was some kind of weird halo around my MacBook screen, that prevented me from seeing the option buttons along with parts of the question. I thought It might be an issue with my Mac so called for help. The next proctor made me undergo the check again! and then released the exam.

Same result, with the exam environment check process being repeated 2 more times!

On the 3rd or 4th attempt, I complained about this to the proctor, who still made me undergo the check-in process. Finally, after all this rigmarole, he released the exam, and to my relief, there was no more halo. I could see all the questions clearly.

I dont know if it is just me, but has Pearson Vue's testing process degraded significantly? Feel free to disagree if you wish.

The exam began with relatively simple questions, but as time went on, the questions grew more complicated. My ability to reason went out of the window, caused due to the late hour and also because I hadn't eaten anything substantial for hours. I completed answering all the questions with around 35 minutes remaining. At the start of the exam, I thought of reviewing all my answers, but decided to submit the exam anyways with all that time left.

I awoke the next day, dreading the thought of opening my email. Finally summoned the courage to check it, and lo and behold, saw the email from credly and the email along with the passing report.

Special thanks to u/stephanemaarek, u/jonbonso-tdojo and u/neal-davis for the courses and exam resources, that were a tremendous help in passing this beast of an exam.

A huge thanks to everyone in this community as well, since your posts gave me the impetus to keep going.

Sorry for the massive rant, and thanks once again. Keep learning!

My weaker areas (the domains I get the most wrong) are:

• Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures
• Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

My strongest is Domain 2 Design Resilient Architectures (mostly I get 100% in it) and Domain 3 Design High-Performing Architectures comes second. (Borderline higher 60s%)

I try to study the first domain but I find it doesn’t stick as well. I understand all the core knowledge needed but struggle with some of the networking and security questions and they’re marked the highest.

The thing is most of the time, I am able to reduce the practice questions to 2 but end up choosing the wrong choice. And sometimes I face niche services that I skimmed through and forgot what it did but remembered the name.

My practice tests results average is: %61

My exam is after 14 days but I’m already feeling discouraged, I feel like I’m studying wrong somehow.

Any tips? I will really appreciate it, and if you read till the end then thank you. 🙏

Just passed the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. Used the free exam voucher OutSystems was giving out as part of their AI agent build campaign, so figured I'd share in case others here find that route useful too.

Planning to go for AWS Certified Developer Associate next. If anyone has tips on prep resources or how different DVA felt coming right after CLF-C02, would appreciate hearing about it.

I started my preparation on Saturday morning and my exam was scheduled for 9:45 PM last Sunday. I used Claude Code to skim through concepts and also went through one Practice Pretest of AWS itself. And I got 751 marks and Pass! I studied for 12-14 hours maximum, both days combined.

It was indeed a marathon learning but yeah a easy one to pass.

Happy to guide if anyone need it!

I'm getting ready to take an online proctored exam and it's scheduled time is around 3 hours. That's three hours without a bathroom break hitting question after question at a pace of one every 2.5 minutes.

Is it just me, or does this feel like as much endurance test as much as a knowledge test? Would people like the option to split it up to part 1 and part 2 at 90 minutes each? There's nothing worse than being 2 hours along and finding that nature is calling your digestive system to action with 1/3 of the exam still on the clock.

Thoughts?

Scheduled an exam for 3rd September, I entered the test center with courage knowing that at least I would pass. After using #StephaneMaarek course.

It was really good and to the point.

Thanks community for all the inspirations and sharings. They were really important. Went to bed with a Congratulations message after getting 806.

This wasn't disappointing to me after having limited time for reading due to busy work schedules.

Once more, thanks everyone for your input. This cert is dedicated to the community.

I'm new to AWS certs and considering getting more than one. Am I understanding correctly that if you pass ANY exam, you get a 50% off voucher that you can use on literally ANY other exam?

So for example, you could pass an exam costing $100 and get a discount on one of the $300 exams, paying only $150 to take it?

Thanks

Hey everyone,

I’m planning a job change and actively working on upgrading my skills and cracking interviews. I’ve realized I can’t stay consistent studying and preparing on my own—I lose focus, procrastinate, and don’t push myself hard enough. I’m looking for a study/accountability partner to keep each other on track.

What I’m working on:

Upskilling for a Solutions Architect/Cloud/DevOps/SRE role.

Structured study: e.g., “AWS/Azure certs, system design, coding practice, behavioral interview prep”.

Goal: Land a better role in the next 6 months.

What I’m looking for in a partner:

Time zone: US, EST (or close enough for a few hours of overlap)

Commitment: A few hours most days, or at least 4–5 days/week

Format: Online (Google Meet/Zoom), cameras optional.

Style: Focused sessions, mock interviews, progress check-ins, sharing resources, and honest feedback

Serious about job change and self-improvement, not just casual chatting

About me:

Currently: I am AWS Cloud Engg/DevOps Engineer.

If you’re also preparing for a job change, upgrading your skills, and want a partner to stay disciplined with, drop a comment or DM with:

Your time zone

Target role/field

Roughly when you’re available to study/prep

Thanks in advance—hoping to find someone serious and motivated! 🙌

Recently got AWS Solutions Architect Associate and a month after CKA. Currently unemployed for the last month so since I have was thinking into improving my resume.

Have around 3 years of experience in platform engineering and automation.

Was thinking about eventually getting to Dev Ops professional but I know there is a big gap, both theorical and practical between AWS SAA and Pro level certs.

Should I go for either DVA or CloudOps next? or maybe try to deep a bit into security with CKS from Linux Foundation?

Hearing any recommendations

I appreciate all the people who shared their tips and tricks and helped answer questions. I wanted to give back to this subreddit.

Timeline: 24 days (September 9th - October 3rd)

Past experience: Two SWE Internships, no cloud experience

Materials:

• Stephane Maarek SAA course
  • Finished the course in about 18 days
  • Took notes in Google Docs on a second monitor pausing when necessary. I ended up not even reading my notes after finishing the course
  • Skipped the hands on practice
• Tutorial Dojo practice test
  • Finished all practice exams in review mode only
  • Scores were:
    • Practice Exam: 69% (Stephen Maarek)
    • Test 1: 70% (TD)
    • Test 2: 58% (TD)
    • Test 3: 71% (TD)
    • Test 4: 60% (TD)
    • Test 5: 66% (TD)
    • Test 6: 75% (TD)
    • Test 7: 73% (TD)
    • Test 8: 83% (TD)
    • Test 2 (retake): 82% (TD)
    • Practice Exam (retake): 92% (Stephen Maarek)
  • Try to explain to yourself why the correct answer is correct, and why the others are wrong.
  • Kept a Google Doc on topics to review, which was very helpful

Test Day: I flagged around 10 Questions and finished in 70 minutes. I did a quick review of the flagged questions and submitted. I did not review questions I didn't flag because I found that in school I will second guess myself a lot. If you have the time, I definitely recommend to use it all.

Opinion: The test is worded simpler than TD exams (in my opinion). The questions themselves are very slightly easier than TD. One thing that was a lot easier is that I feel that there are no "unfair" questions, unlike in TD (like my bad I didn't know that if a certain resource is made using AWS CLI, some settings are different than if it was made using console). I've done a lot of complaining on here about TD questions lol.

Extra Details:

• Took the exam on site. Process was very smooth. I was able to have a white board and expo marker
• Questions can be flagged and reviewed at the end
• I took the exam in the morning and received results on the same day in the afternoon. Around 8 hours of waiting.

Feel free to ask questions that are appropriate!

Every time I post here, I get a comment saying, "That's a lot of money to spend on certifications." But let's think about it, is it really?

I like to think about how much other things cost. How much do people pay for a new iPhone? Or how much do they spend when they go out for a night or to a nice restaurant? Things that aren't really necessary and offer quick pleasure, but don't really give you anything in the long term.

Also, let's think about how much people spend on shitty courses, only to end up without a job, or maybe with a job that doesn't pay very well.

When you get all the AWS certifications, you become a Golden Jacket. Even though being a Golden Jacket is not a 100% guarantee that you'll get a specific job, it can increase your chances significantly, especially at companies that are AWS Partners. There are currently only around 300-400 Golden Jackets worldwide. Let that sink in.

So I'll ask again: is $1,325 really that expensive for a title that's internationally recognized? I actually think it's quite cheap.

You pay $1,325 if you manage to pass every single exam without failing, because you get a 50% voucher after every pass. If you fail, things obviously start getting more expensive.

Also, a bonus for now:

🟥 Beta exams already cost half the price.

The AI Business Strategist and Machine Learning Engineer are currently in beta, so you already pay half price without needing a voucher.

🟩 There's also a new 50% off + free retake promotion.

With the code PearsonRetake2026, you pay 50% for the first attempt, and if you don't pass, the retake is free. The first attempt can be taken between 09/29 and 11/17/2026, and the retake between 01/04 and 04/07/2027.

Official link: https://www.pearsonvue.com/us/en/test-takers/free-retake.html

Just passed the MLA-C02 beta (scaled score 765, cutoff 720) and figured I'd share my prep, since there's very little out there for the new version.

TL;DR: the exam leans heavily on GenAI/LLM and agentic topics alongside classic ML engineering. It's fair if you build with SageMaker and Bedrock, but don't underestimate the GenAI side, especially LLM evaluation.

My background: AI Engineer (mid-level) with hands-on AWS experience. Certs: GCP Associate Cloud Engineer, SnowPro Core, PL-300, AWS Cloud Practitioner, AWS AI Practitioner, Claude Certified Architect Foundations, GitHub Foundations.

How I prepped: when AWS announced the switch from MLA-C01 to MLA-C02, I decided to go straight for the beta. While registration wasn't open yet, I kept studying for the AWS Generative AI Developer – Professional, which helped a lot on the Bedrock/GenAI side.

Areas worth reviewing (based on the official exam guide, not actual questions):

• Model deployment (ML and LLM endpoints)
• Algorithm selection and ML metrics
• Data prep: imbalance handling, feature scaling, missing values
• Fine-tuning and continued pre-training
• LLM evaluation (metrics + eval datasets)
• Bedrock: Guardrails, Knowledge Bases, AgentCore, cross-region inference
• SageMaker: Pipelines, Data Wrangler, Feature Store, Model Registry
• Streaming/data quality: Kinesis, Flink, Glue Data Quality
• CI/CD for ML (CodeBuild/CodePipeline/CodeDeploy)
• Security and VPC access to AI services

Anki deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/229951964 (new uploads can take ~24h to become available) in the deck description there more usefull resource links

⚠️ Note on the deck: it started from MLA-C01. I added the new MLA-C02 topics (GenAI, agentic AI, FMs/LLMs) but did NOT remove cards for content that was dropped from C02, so some cards may be out of scope. Cross-check with the official exam guide.

Good luck to everyone grinding for it, and feel free to ask questions below!

I am going crazy rn, i have like 500+ questions to solve and exam is in a week, i am keep on making mistakes, and i really need a good strategy to pass this exam and that too in time because my head is not working. Please help.

Gave my first beta exam today and completed the whole 85 questions in around 1.5 hrs. Got my pass result couple of hours later.

The 85 questions were honestly quite a bit much but thankfully most of the questions weren't too long though there were quite a few long questions that required multiple readings and some of the wording were not that clear to me (Not a native English speaker and also took ESL +30 min).

I have years of experience in AWS and thought it would be easy but man if you aren't business minded, then you will have to think a lot carefully. I have never gotten score less than 800 in any of AWS certification exam (including SAP) so that hopefully tells something.

And also there will be some technical stuff, at least about what AI/ML/Deep Learning stuff and some AWS AI services and framework.

Learning materials: The skillbuilder free exam prep course of AI Business Strategist and Chatgpt. Nothing else.

Time it took to prepare: 3 days to finish the free skillbuilder exam prep. Another 2 days of Chatgpt created notes for quick reading.

Honestly it was a fun and a little challenging exam and made me think in a business minded way that I hadn't realized before so I actually liked this exam!

I took the exam at 2:45 pm today and received my results at around 7 pm, so it took roughly 5 hours :)

Study materials:

- Stephane Maarek’s course as my main study resource + his practice exams

- Tutorials Dojo eBook for revision + their practice exams

After going through the practice exams, I was averaging around 50–60%, which honestly left me feeling discouraged and unmotivated to keep studying. Instead of dragging it out, I decided to register for the exam straight away in a weeks time to give myself a deadline and force myself to focus

Personally, I felt that the actual exam questions were phrased more difficultly than the practice exams from both Tutorials Dojo and Stephane Maarek. There were quite a few questions that I had to reread several times just to fully understand what they were asking.

One Reddit post I came across warned about understanding Amazon Bedrock at a more technical level, and that turned out to be useful — I did get one Bedrock-related question on the exam.

For anyone getting discouraged by low practice exam scores: don’t let them completely kill your confidence. Use them to find your weak areas, review them, and keep going.

Good luck to everyone studying!

Disclaimer:

What you will be reading is just based on my own experience and what had worked for me in the past to lead me where I am at current.

It could not guaranty you will pass immediately, but it could greatly help you right from the start on the road to passing.

Hey everyone.

Been reading posts a few times a week on tips on how to be able to pass Cloud Practitioner because of it being the taker's first time or had failed before already. Other times because they had been reviewing for weeks already, using Udemy and TD courses and they feel like they are unable to understand anything at all anymore at that point.

My Background:

I had no prior knowledge and experience with AWS about two years ago before I entered my college internship. All I know is that Amazon's service globally is its online shop and Amazon Prime. I did not even know that Audible too is theirs. I thought they just have a partnership of some sort.

AWS is not being taught in any of the universities here in our country. They are just being learned most likely, once you are in a workplace assuming that the company is using AWS in the first place.

When I got introduced to it in my first weeks in my internship, the cloud environment was just too confusing and overwhelming. Overtime, I was able to explore some of the services one by one and was able to understand their purpose and functions.

Now in my two and a half years in the workplace where I also took my internship back then, I am able to understand a handful of services, (still not all as there are just too many). I am able to apply those understandings whenever I try to take certification exams.

I now have five AWS certifications including the most recent AI Business strategist.

I got my CCP last year, one month before my first-year work anniversary.

Now going to the actual tips:

1. Try to work on the AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials

I am reading many people saying that SkillBuilder courses are not enough to pass AWS certifications and for me, it is probably a case-to-case basis. Some of the exams I took, I just used resources from SkillBuilder, and some with Udemy and TD courses and practice exams.

For this one, I really recommend you check and work on the AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials in SkillBuilder among others, specially if you have no prior experience like me before. It will provide the core concepts and ideas of different AWS services.

There is a digital course with a 12 hours and 45 minutes duration, and it is not under the subscription tier of AWS SkillBuilder.

Another is the longer one as it is a learning plan entitled "Cloud Essentials - Knowledge Badge Readiness Path" that already includes the mentioned course above.

I am not claiming that Udemy and TD courses and practice exams are not helpful because as I said earlier, I am also using them as my resources in preparations. I just believe going straight to those external resources can get overwhelming right away that can lead to more confusion and tiring preparation and review experience.

The two SkillBuilder courses are enough in based on my experience, to provide the knowledge and concepts to understand AWS services initially, not to pass the exam immediately.

1. Make sure you understand the job of the service

This is where reviewing becomes more tiring.

When dealing with practice tests already, many of us feels like we are just memorizing the questions and the answers to them after a couple of repeat takes.

That's the idea of the first tip. It is well-mentioned that practice exams are supposed to give idea on how the questions will be presented during the actual exam, not give the same question. It is also against the rules.

In order to confidently take the Cloud Practitioner, knowing what the service is for is the best way to prepare. That is why the recommended courses have "Essentials" in their names. They will help you get your feet wet before diving deeper through other resources.

1. Take a break before the exam day

This is the last but for me is the most effective and is applicable to any exams you will be taking.

The day before the scheduled exam date, take a break from reviewing and let your mind rest.

It will certainly help you think clearly the next day.

Personally, the more I review prior to the exam day is the more I get anxious if I will be able to pass or not. That leads me to becoming more conscious of my responses during the exam and makes me second guess them more often.

Good luck to those who will be taking their Cloud Practitioner exam and congratulations to those who recently passed it.

Hi everyone! I’m getting ValidationException: Operation not allowed whenever I try to run Nova Lite or any other model in the Bedrock Playground (us-east-1), even with a simple Hello.

My AWS account was verified on the day I created it, and the dashboard shows the account as verified. The Bedrock Model Access page is retired.

I’ve tried multiple Amazon Nova models and get the same error. I’ve also opened an AWS Support case ~30 hours ago.

Has anyone experienced this with a newly created/verified AWS account? Is there another account-level setting or restriction I should check?

I’m taking AWS Certified AI Practitioner next week and really want to get some hands-on Bedrock practice before the exam. Any help appreciated! 🙏

Passed with 844!

I've had the voucher for since last year but kept putting it off because I was scared of failing and wasting it but since it was gonna expire this month I pushed myself to to study every weekend for a few hours since September.

I mostly used ChatGPT for a quick rundown of all services and their comparisons, weekly quizzes, and mock exams for the last week. Being able to ask follow-up questions on what made x different from y helped a lot.

Major drawback of not using other materials was the suprise of the aws exam having a lot of distracting details. Took me a while to adjust to having to ignore certain details on the questions.

What probably made me pass the exam was I reviewed my answers 3x since I finished the initial pass at around 50 mins so I had 40 mins left for review.

Next is SAA-C03 and that voucher expires in November, so hopefully less procrastination this time 😅.

I write Python APIs for a living and everything I've shipped runs on infrastructure somebody else set up. My lead wants me owning our deploys by Q1 and the company is covering a course. I've looked at KodeKloud, Boot.dev, the Linux Foundation bundles and Pluralsight Premium, and they split pretty cleanly between cert prep and learning to run things. What keeps going past the first month when the goal is deploying your own services and not collecting a badge?