Careers With Certs - Full Article

This was originally a series of posts explaining careers within the AWS skillset and their related certifications. I’ve now consolodated them into a single post to read easier.

“Hi guys. Just wondering once you complete the AWS Associate certification. What kind of jobs can you do and what’s the pay like?”

Introduction

This is one of many questions which I see regularly in many forms of social media groups, relating to AWS certification. So I wanted to go through a few popular career paths, examples of jobs and maybe even the average wage bracket.

N.B: Pay scales and job titles may differ from country to country and state to state.

- “What kind of jobs can you do?”

This is a simple question with a lot of answers. If we look at the actual certifications, we’ll break it down.

In order to explain this I’m going to talk about the foundation and associate examinations only.

The Professional certifications lean on an advanced skill set which is both highly sought after by many employers and also highly diverse.

Whilst I do list a lot of specific jobs in my examples, please have a broader mindset of what these titles may mean. Also, certifications alone will not win you any of these jobs. AWS is a platform for hosting many varied vendors and technologies which have their own skillsets.

As a summary, to thrive in the AWS world, think of yourself as a Generalist rather than a specialist.

Cloud Practitioner

This is the foundational of all the certifications.

It’s recommended to take this certification with 6 months experience in an AWS environment.

“The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner examination is intended for individuals who have the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively demonstrate an overall understanding of the AWS Cloud, independent of specific technical roles addressed by other AWS Certifications.” - https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-cloud-practitioner

This certification can contribute to numerous roles, both technical and non-technical;

- Technical

• First line technical and/or operational support
• Junior developer
• Junior data analyst
• … and any other entry level role

- Non-Technical

• CEO
• CIO
• CFO / Financial Controller
• General Managers
• Sales Managers
• Account Managers

This may seem just odd to start with. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get any of these roles with just a Cloud Practitioner certification. In fact any role you’re going to be hired for, you’ll be assessed on many qualities and not just the certification.

The AWS Cloud Practitioner is actually recommended for anyone that has AWS exposure.

• Sales staff that need to sell solutions, even though they don’t build solutions will benefit from the knowledge of the AWS Cloud Practitioner.
• Finance staff or even the CFO will benefit from the understanding of AWS Cost Optimization tools covered in the cert.
• Account managers may benefit from the understanding of AWS Products whilst liaising with their customers to help promote confidence with their clients / customers.
• A CEO and/or CFO can benefit greatly to understand better their investment.

This may sound like the “lowest” / “easiest” examination, but it’s FOUNDATIONAL. The knowledge covered in the certification supports everything you will learn moving forward.

Solutions Architect Associate

This is the first associate level examination I will cover.

“The AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate examination is intended for individuals who perform a solutions architect role and have one or more years of hands-on experience designing available, cost-efficient, fault-tolerant, and scalable distributed systems on AWS.” - AWS Certification and Training

As mentioned, this is intended for those who have a minimum of 12 months experience in AWS. Remember, these prerequisites ARE optional, but very recommended.

This certification contributes to the following roles;

• Level 2 / 3 technical support
• Systems Engineer
• Solutions Architect
• Infrastructure Engineer
• Presales managers/consultant

There are many varying roles beyond these few, so please be creative in your interpretation.

The knowledge that is validated by this certification will allow you to explain the core set of services with understanding for their function and be able to interact with the services without being dangerous. You should also be able to create basic solutions based upon end user requirements and implement up to the level of minimal viable product (MVP).

The associate level certification sits upon the foundational level, contributing to the knowledge attained but directing toward a more specific job role or function.

Developer Associate

The last post in our mini series and the last of the associate certifications in our list is the Developer Associate.

“The AWS Certified Developer - Associate examination is intended for individuals who perform a development role and have one or more years of hands-on experience developing and maintaining an AWS-based application.” - AWS Certification and Training

At first glance, from the synopsis, you are led to believe that this certification is mainly for people in a development profession. However it provides so much more.

This certification will expand out to the following roles (not limited to);

AWS Developer Devops Administrator AWS Technical Specialist Cloud Software Developer Level 2 or 3 AWS Technical Support Developer (Junior, mid-level or senior)

This certification contributes toward skills sets such as developing serverless solutions utilising Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, etc. You’ll also find a lot of focus on CI/CD pipelines, mainly focusing on CodePipeline and the Codestart range of products. You’ll also validate your skills in refactoring solutions into AWS and your application security.

Top tip: AWS Code Guru is coming into maturity and may appear on an exam soon.

Unofficially, this certification forms 50% of a higher tier examination, AWS Devops Engineer. This also provides a lot of core skills that are used in many careers. Many people have started their career’s with AWS or AWS Partners with this examination or the Solutions Architect and advance onto Sysops, prior to taking a Professional level certification.

SysOps Administrator Associate

The next in line of associate examinations is the Sysops Administrator.

“The AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate examination is intended for systems administrators in a systems operations role with at least one year of experience in deployment, management, and operations on AWS.” - AWS Certification and Training

The official AWS description gives away the main role for the type of roles you’d be doing with this particular certification. Once again, it’s mentioned that 12 months experience is advised, but this is completely optional.

The following roles would find this certification of advantage;

• Systems Administrator
• Operations Manager
• Infrastructure / Site Reliability Engineer
• Senior Infrastructure Engineer
• Technical Account Manager
• Senior Solutions Architect

This certification contributes to skill sets such as working with highly scalable solutions, migration of on-premise workloads and specification of client requirements in detail whilst respecting size of workload and security requirements.

As said previously, the associate level sits above the foundational certification. This particular certification forms, unofficially, 50% of the Devops Engineer Professional. Many people say this is the hardest of the associate level examinations as it has a more varied scoped.