AWS Certification Roadmap
AWS groups certifications into four levels. Confirm the current list and exam codes at aws.amazon.com/certification, since exams are refreshed and renamed regularly.
The ladder
| Level | Certifications |
| Foundational | Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02), AI Practitioner |
| Associate | Solutions Architect (SAA-C03), Developer, CloudOps Engineer (formerly SysOps Administrator), Data Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer |
| Professional | Solutions Architect (SAP-C02), DevOps Engineer (DOP-C02), Generative AI Developer |
| Specialty | Security, Advanced Networking |
Recommended paths
| Role | Path |
| SRE / DevOps | Solutions Architect Associate, then DevOps Engineer Professional |
| Architect | Solutions Architect Associate, then Solutions Architect Professional |
| Security | Solutions Architect Associate, then Security Specialty |
| Operations | CloudOps Engineer Associate, then DevOps Engineer Professional |
Tips
- Solutions Architect Associate is the strongest first "real" AWS exam, because it teaches the services everything else builds on.
- Specialty and Professional exams assume real hands-on time, so build things in a sandbox account.
- Pair AWS with a CNCF certification such as CKA to cover Amazon EKS properly.