My AWS Certification Journey 🚀

👋 Introduction

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Hey everyone! This is my very first blog post here 🎉
I wanted to start by sharing a big part of my journey — how I went from juggling two jobs to becoming AWS Certified (Cloud Practitioner, Solutions Architect Associate, Developer Associate).

📚 How It Started

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Back when I began this journey, I knew cloud was the future. The challenge?
I was already working full time as a Team Lead (managing ~30 people) and had a second job on the side. Time was not on my side.

Instead of giving up, I decided to turn Toronto traffic into my motivation.
🚶 After work, instead of driving straight home and getting stuck in traffic (which drains your soul), I’d walk to the Toronto Public Library and study there for 4–5 hours every evening.

Those walks kept my energy up, and the quiet library hours became my “study sanctuary.”

🎓 The Courses & Practice

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I leaned heavily on some fantastic resources:

• 📘 Stephane Maarek’s Udemy Courses (link) — detailed, hands-on AWS content
• 📗 Neal Davis’ Course for AWS Cloud Practitioner (link) — clear and beginner-friendly
• 📝 Tutorial Dojo Practice Exams (link) — helped me test knowledge under real exam pressure

Each exam (Cloud Practitioner, Solutions Architect, Developer) I managed to pass within 4–6 weeks each — while still working two jobs.

🛠️ Study Techniques That Worked

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Here’s what really helped me stick through:

• Hands-on practice → I didn’t just watch lectures, I spun up AWS services (Lambda, S3, CloudFormation, etc.)
• Consistent routine → daily study, even if short, beats random long weekends
• Walking to study → small physical habit gave me mental energy
• Note-taking & quick reviews → helped me retain tricky concepts (IAM policies, VPC setups, etc.)

💡 Applying AWS at Work

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As a Team Lead, I didn’t want my AWS learning to stay theoretical. So I:

• Built small internal websites to automate routine tasks for my team
• Leveraged AWS microservices to streamline processes
• End result? My team of 30 loved it, and I built real-world confidence while studying

That combination of cert prep + real-world application made the concepts stick.

🎯 Final Thoughts

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Earning those certifications wasn’t easy — especially with 2 jobs, late-night study sessions, and long walks in Toronto winters. But it taught me:

👉 With consistency + hands-on practice, 4–6 weeks is enough to crush an AWS exam.
👉 Walking into the library every day was just as important as logging into the AWS console.
👉 Most importantly, the journey gave me the confidence to pursue a career in Cloud & DevOps Engineering.

Thanks for reading my very first post 🙌
More to come soon — projects, study notes, and cloud experiments.

✍️ If you’re studying for AWS exams right now — keep pushing, stay consistent, and get your hands dirty with real implementations. You’ve got this 💪