I'm currently deep in AWS Solutions Architect Associate prep, and something's been nagging at me.
i can explaiN VPC peering, explain when to use DynamoDB On-Demand vs Provisioned, explain the tradeoffs between ECS Fargate and EC2, but explaining isn't the same as building. Most of what I "know" right now lives in flashcards and practice questions, not in projects I've actually shipped.
And once the cert is done, I'll need to shift into interview prep for cloud/DevOps roles, which means DSA, system design, and being sharp in at least one or two languages. On top of that, if I want to stay relevant as a full-stack developer too, that's React, Next.js, and whatever else the market expects this year.
So here's my honest question to anyone who's been through this:
How do you actually become a strong software engineer when the expectation is to be solid across so many components at once, cloud architecture, DSA, system design, a backend language, a frontend framework, and now AI tooling on top of that?
Is it realistic to be equally strong everywhere? or is it normal even expected to have one or two areas where you're clearly stronger, and the rest at a "competent enough to ship and learn on the job" level?
Genuinely curious how others have approached this. #aws, #careeradvice, #beginners
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