How AWS Training and Certification helped me move into a technical role at AWS

Over the past three years, I have embarked on a transformational career journey, going from a sales role, with a non-IT background, to a Solutions Architect. The resources available through Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training and Certification were some of the most impactful levers I pulled to support with this transition. In this blog, I will share details about this journey, specific tools and activities I used, and advice for any IT leaders on how they can empower their team members to do the same.

Cloud horizons

Before joining AWS in 2020, I worked for three years at Amazon.com in Vendor Manager and Partner Manager positions, helping onboard new suppliers to list their products on the Amazon.co.uk store.

As with many businesses at Amazon, data was key to our role. This gave me my first interactions with AWS services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), which we leveraged to store sensitive information; Amazon Redshift, a data warehouse that we used to query business-critical data; and Amazon QuickSight, a serverless BI tool that helped our teams monitor performance. My interest in these services led me to apply for a Territory Manager role at AWS.

Before applying, I studied for and achieved the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, giving me a much stronger foundation in AWS Cloud concepts, security and compliance within AWS, and an understanding of the core AWS services. While it wasn’t available when I prepared, we have since released AWS Cloud Quest, an interactive, role-playing game that is a terrific aid for those studying for this certification. I also encourage you to check out these tips to prepare for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certifications.

AWS Cloud Quest: an interactive, role-playing game to help you learn cloud skills

Light bulb moment

Have you ever had a light bulb moment in your career, where you suddenly realised you had a strong impulse to move in a certain direction? This happened to me in June 2020 once I had joined AWS. Being new to the IT world and looking to better serve my customers, I decided to take the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification, which goes several layers deeper than the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner in teaching you to design solutions that incorporate AWS services, and take a more hands-on approach to building in the cloud.

The passion I realised I had for cloud computing, and IT in general, blew me away. Who knew that the Internet is connected through thousands of undersea cables linking the continents across oceans? How fascinating are the myriad ways you can keep data secure through multiple forms of encryption? Understanding the building blocks that some of the world’s biggest companies – from Nasdaq to Netflix – use to serve their customers became more intriguing the more I learned. At this point, I became determined to pivot toward a technical role during my career.

Building a knowledge base

In order to move into a technical role, I realised – with the help of mentors, managers and others in my network – I would need to: (1) continue to develop my AWS Cloud skills by obtaining more AWS Certifications of increased difficulty; and (2) gain more hands-on experience with AWS products, services, and implementations.

For the AWS Certifications, I continued using the momentum I had built up to tackle the remaining two Associate certifications (AWS Certified Developer – Associate and AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate). The confidence that having all three Associate certifications under my belt gave me then allowed me to go for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect -Professional and AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional certifications. With every AWS Certification exam you study for, I always recommend using the Official AWS Practice Exam which can be found on AWS Skill Builder. As an example, here’s a link to the Official Cloud Practitioner Practice Exam.

The order in which I achieved my first six AWS Certifications

For the second side of the equation – getting even more hands-on experience – I used a number of different techniques. First and foremost, I would recommend finding a pet project that you can build on AWS. For me, that was a basic application to match two people studying for the same AWS Certification, which I built using AWS Amplify, a service that helps you build full-stack web and mobile applications in the cloud.

The AWS Free Tier allows you to set up an AWS account that gives you free access to certain AWS services for 12 months, as long as you do not pass specified usage thresholds. In addition, I discovered AWS Workshops, which offer hundreds of self-paced workshops and tutorials across a wide range of services and cloud domains. Finally, I regularly familiarised myself with additions to the AWS Solutions Library, a repository of architectural solutions that customers can deploy in their AWS accounts for business and technical use cases. These three activities really helped me solidify the knowledge I gained through certification with hands-on cloud experience.

The technical switch

The theoretical and practical skills that I had gained throughout this learning journey, not to mention a large dose of confidence, led me to apply for a Solutions Architect role in London. The interview process tested many of the things I had learned during my studies, such as designing applications according to AWS Well-Architected pillars, and also put my hands-on skills to the test, when I had to build an example three-tier web application on AWS and explain my design decisions.

I have now been in the AWS Solutions Architect role for just over a year, and every day brings new learning opportunities. Day-to-day, I advise UK-based AWS customers on how to build their applications and workloads in the cloud. It is very rewarding seeing their projects come to fruition and how this helps them delight their own customers. Looking forward, having so far achieved nine AWS Certifications, my next goal is to gain all 12 and complete the set.

Empowering your teams

While this blog post is primarily aimed at those who might want to pursue a similar technical switch in their career, I am aware that many of you reading may already sit on the IT side of your business, or may be starting to build on AWS but currently lack in-house cloud skills. I would encourage you to guide your employees in this direction by sharing this blog post with them. You can also tap into the resources from AWS Training and Certification to help you design a more formal learning path for your team.

Summary and calls to action

Once I realised how much of a passion I had for the cloud, through a combination of formal learning and hands-on experience, I managed to land my dream role at AWS. Like all learning journeys, I went at a pace that I could manage and that felt most appropriate for me. I hope that reading this has inspired you today, if not to dive in head first and pursue a technical career, then at least to develop your cloud skills and make yourself an even better-rounded individual. I would encourage you to do the following three things at a minimum:

1. Sign up for an AWS Skill Builder account today. There are 600+ free trainings and resources.
2. Decide which AWS Certification you want to take next. The resources in Skill Builder will help you prepare.
3. Reach out to me on LinkedIn if you have questions or want further advice.

Good luck with your own learning journey!