Contrary to “popular” belief that acquiring certifications play just a minute part in being a testament of the expertise an individual has gained in a particular field, I am one of those who can testify to the amount of knowledge and skills gained in the process of preparing for and sitting for certification exams.

After two months of taking an 87 hour long advanced AWS DevOps course made up of videos, tutorials labs, lab challenges and practice questions on QA (formerly Cloud Academy), I took the certification exam and a few hours after that, I got a congratulatory email with the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional badge.

As I think back to my preparation for this certification exam, it would be unfair to undermine the amount of insights I got from reading articles and watching YouTube videos of other people writing or talking about their experience. All these inspired me to follow in their footsteps and share my experience as it has the potential to help someone on their certification journey. Stay with me as I share the resources and study tips I used.

Resources

• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer — Professional Official Exam Guide: This is the first resource on the list not necessarily because it was the most important while I prepared for the exam but because a lot of people undermine its importance. The exam guide is the blueprint that will help you understand what is required of you to become a certified AWS DevOps engineer professional. While preparing for the exam, I found myself going back to this guide to make sure I was learning and paying attention to the right things.
• QA (formerly Cloud Academy): In the other two AWS certification exams (Solutions Architect Associate and Developer Associate) I have taken, I used Steven Mareek’s Udemy courses which are some of the best resources available online to prepare for those certification exams. As one of the benefits of being an AWS community builder, I have a one year subscription to the QA platform paid in full by AWS in partnership with Community Builder’s program. QA’s advanced AWS DevOps course was the main resource I used in preparing for this exam. I can tell you in all confidence that this was by far the most detailed online course I have ever taken. The instructors took time to explain every concept and service. In addition to that, the course includes detailed lab tutorials and challenges.

• Generative AI Tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, and Meta AI): Generative AI tools are some of the best tools that are helpful as you prepare for certifications exams and any other type of exam altogether. Depending on whichever one I felt like using on any given day, I used these tools to widen and deepen my understanding of AWS services, tools and DevOps principles.
  Disclaimer: No matter how good these GenAI tools are, they still have the tendency to give you wrong information so make sure you use official documentations and sources to verify information that you are not sure of.

• AWS White Papers and articles: When you go through practice test questions for the AWS DevOps Engineer exam, you realize that most of the answers to these questions are solutions that have been architected and well documented in AWS whitepaper and articles. Resources such as these help you understand how different AWS services come together to create robust, maintainable and operationally efficient DevOps solutions.
  Practice Tests: Even though this is the last resource on this list, it is definitely not the least important. Experience has taught me that when preparing for an exam, practice tests are indispensable. With this in mind, I made sure I went through every practice test I could find several times over.

  Study Tips

  You will agree with that no matter the quantity and quality of the resources you have access to, they will not amount to much if you fail to set up a system you will follow to adequately make use of these resources. Here are some of my study tips:

• Setting a goal: The first step towards achieving anything worthwhile is setting an attainable goal. When you set your goal, you have to turn your back on it and fall to the level of your system. If I lost you there, please give me a second to explain. When you have a goal, the next thing is to create a clear outline and timeline that will aid you in achieving that goal. In my case, I set a two month goal to study for this exam and then I went on to formulate a plan on how I was going to work on achieving the goal from a daily to a weekly and finally a monthly time frame. To create an added sense of urgency, I booked my exam in advance even before I was confidently ready to sit for the exam.

• Studying consistently: I have witnessed the power of consistency in different areas of my life. It is also a popular belief that consistency is better than intensity. With this in mind, I made sure I studied consistently until my goal was achieved. On days when I had more time and energy, I combined consistency and intensity. They have proven to be a formidable duo.

Conclusion

Hopefully, something I have mentioned in this article will help you as you prepare for your exam. Goodluck with on your exam, go kill them with success! You can connect with me on Linkedin. Please share this article with anyone you think it might be helpful to. Ciao!!