Let me start off by saying I think the Golden Jacket is ugly and I would never be caught dead wearing it in public. Do I still want it? Absolutely. Will I still end up wearing it out somewhere? Most probably.
For those who don’t know, the Golden Jacket is what you get when you complete all 12 AWS certifications. Some see it as a flex, others as a milestone that represents weeks of hard work and time taken to prepare. For me it's more of a personal challenge. I remember coming back from re:Invent in December, seeing people walking around wearing their golden jackets and then seeing this picture:
It got me thinking about not only the lack of women in that picture but also the lack of women who dress and look like me and it ignited a very small spark of wanting to achieve it myself.
The Solutions Architect Professional exam is probably the hardest (and what felt like the longest) exam I've ever taken. The questions are very detailed and really require you to read and understand what's being asked. There hasn’t ever been a certification exam where I've used all the time available, but this exam had me checking my answers until the very last second. Not many people (from what I've read online) seem to pass this exam first time and I wasn’t one of them either lol.
I am well aware that certifications are no match for practical experience, but I feel like this exam has definitely expanded my knowledge as an engineer. Even just learning the theory of how things work has made it easier for me to understand complex architecture diagrams and why things are architected the way they are even if I'm not the one implementing it.
The best way to see certifications is either:
- Deepening existing skills by backing them up with the theory of why things work the way they do.
- Building new skills by first learning the theory and then applying it through projects that bring that knowledge to life.
So let me give you a timeline of events:
I originally set out to prepare for the DevOps Professional exam back in December 2023, with the goal of passing it before the end of 2024. Life and work got in the way and that didn’t end up happening.
It came to December 2024 and someone in my team had just passed the Solutions Architect Professional exam, and I realised that my Solutions Architect Associate was expiring in June 2025. That’s when I decided to shift my focus from the DevOps Professional to the Solutions Architect Professional which would automatically renew my Associate.
In January, I started Adrian Cantrill’s course and was making decent progress. A few weeks go by, and work picks up and I no longer have as much time to prepare for the exam.
It gets to April and I realise I'm only 7% done with Adrian's course and with 2 months left until my Associate expires I need to get back on track so I start using Tutorials Dojo mock questions to speed up my prep. I had a voucher from the AWS All Builders Welcome Grant which was expiring on 31st May that needed to be used so I booked my exam for 30th May.
It gets to mid-May and I am still nowhere near ready to take this exam but with the voucher expiring, there’s no chance of rescheduling. I suck it up and take the exam knowing I'll most likely fail and I did but.... I only failed by a few marks. I realise that my prep has been working and I wasn’t that far off so I plan to retake it in a few weeks just before my Associate expires.
June comes around, I was on holiday and generally busy so didn’t get as much study time as I’d hoped. I intended to sit the exam the week after I got back from holiday but who was I kidding? I was too tired and lazy so that didn’t happen and sadly my Solutions Architect Associate (and Cloud Practitioner) expired.
Anyways, end of June and I continue with my prep and rebook my exam for end of July. This time I'm prepared (or so I think) for what's to come and I focus on using Tutorials Dojo and AWS documentation to prepare. I also start using the QA Cloud Platform labs and my personal AWS account to practice some of the concepts I'm learning about (super grateful to the AWS Community Builders programme for the free subscription and the AWS account credits).
It's the end of July, finally time for my second attempt at this beast of an exam, I am incredibly nervous, and my family is sat somewhere praying for me (mostly so they don't have to deal with my tears if I fail again). I knew there were still areas I wasn’t strong in but I didn’t want to drag it out any longer and reschedule the exam.
I felt like the questions on the second attempt were much harder than the first time. I was asked about services I hadn’t even heard of and I finished that exam with the sinking feeling that I had failed yet again. A few hours go by and I get an email from Credly "Samia! You just earned a badge from AWS." and I am in shock but so relieved. This time it was a PASS!!!
So here I am, one step closer to earning this Golden Jacket that I will probably wear a grand total of once but at least I will be representing all the underrepresented women in tech who look and dress the way I do and hope that it serves as a reminder that women like us do belong.
The team member who passed and inspired me to take this exam has promised to be on this journey with me and one day we shall wear our Golden Jackets together and feel slightly less embarrassed. He just needs to give me some time to catch up to him (Please Johnny I beg, take a break).
Anyways here are some lessons learned:
- Be consistent with your prep wherever you can — even small chunks add up
- AWS Docs are your best friend (not just for this exam but in general)
- Have more confidence in yourself — you probably know more than you think
- Don’t listen to people who tell you certifications are pointless. Yes sometimes they can be because they wont be relevant to the work you're doing and realistically you don’t need to know about every service that exists but for me this journey of achieving the certification rather than the certification itself has been so helpful as an engineer in helping me understand architectural design decisions.
Next up: AWS Security Specialty
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