AWS Learning Path¶

A practical guide to learning AWS, from zero to productive. This isn't a 12-month curriculum — it's the fastest path to being useful with AWS.

Free Resources¶

AWS Skill Builder - Official training, tons of free courses (start here)
AWS Free Tier - 12 months free for core services (stay within limits!)
freeCodeCamp AWS Course - 10+ hour deep dive, quality content
AWS Workshops - Hands-on labs, various topics
A Cloud Guru Free Tier - Quality video courses
AWS Getting Started Guides - Official tutorials
AWS re:Post - Official Q&A platform (replaced forums in 2024)

Interactive Labs¶

AWS Sandbox Accounts - Official hands-on tutorials in real AWS
Qwiklabs AWS - Temporary accounts for safe experimentation
Instruqt AWS Labs - Browser-based scenarios
LocalStack - Run AWS locally for development (Pro version worth it)
AWS CloudShell - Browser-based shell with AWS CLI pre-installed

Certifications Worth It¶

Recommended Path

Solutions Architect Associate - Most valuable, industry standard
Developer Associate - If you code daily on AWS
Skip others unless employer pays or senior role requires

Cloud Practitioner - $100, easiest, good starting point if totally new
Solutions Architect Associate - $150, most popular, worth it for resume (this one matters)
Developer Associate - $150, worth it if you code on AWS daily
SysOps Administrator Associate - $150, operations-focused
Skip unless senior/employer pays: Professional certs ($300), Specialty certs ($300) - overkill for most

Reality check:

Solutions Architect Associate is the sweet spot (most job postings ask for this)
Study 2-3 months with hands-on practice, exams are scenario-based
Use Tutorials Dojo practice exams ($15, best investment)
Join r/AWSCertifications for study tips

Projects to Build¶

Beginner (learn the basics)

Static website - S3 + CloudFront + Route53 (learn storage + CDN)
Serverless URL shortener - Lambda + DynamoDB + API Gateway
EC2 web server - Deploy LAMP/NGINX stack manually

Intermediate (portfolio-worthy)

REST API - Lambda + API Gateway + DynamoDB + Cognito auth
File processing pipeline - S3 triggers Lambda, stores results in RDS
CI/CD pipeline - CodePipeline + CodeBuild + ECR + ECS
Serverless blog - Amplify + Lambda + DynamoDB + S3

Advanced (job-interview flex)

Multi-region application - Route 53 failover + RDS cross-region replicas
Event-driven microservices - SQS/SNS/EventBridge architecture
Cost optimization dashboard - Lambda + Cost Explorer API + QuickSight
Real-time analytics - Kinesis Data Streams + Lambda + Timestream

Last Updated: 2026-01-31 | Vibe Check: Pathfinder - The cert path is well-trodden. The projects section is the real value — build these, not more tutorials.

Tags: aws, learning-path, certification, projects