AWS certifications

AWS certifications come in tiers, and the tier decides both the difficulty and who the exam is for. Foundational exams — Cloud Practitioner and AI Practitioner — assume no hands-on experience and test concepts, services, pricing and security at the level a manager, salesperson or new engineer needs. Associate exams — Solutions Architect and Developer — assume you have built on AWS and test design and implementation decisions across the exam guide's content domains. All four are delivered by Pearson VUE at a test centre or by online proctoring, scored on a scaled range with a published minimum, and valid for three years before recertification.

The exam guides are the study plan. Each names its content domains with a percentage weight — Cloud Practitioner's four, AI Practitioner's five, Solutions Architect's four design pillars, Developer's four from development through troubleshooting — and the questions are multiple choice or multiple response. AWS publishes the guides on its documentation site, and the exam pages here map the practice sets to those domains.

Recertification keeps the tiers linked: passing a higher-level exam renews the lower ones in the same path, and a certification must still be active to be renewed. Foundational credentials are the cheapest to hold; associate credentials are the ones hiring managers name.

Two policies shape test day. AWS's before-testing policies require a government-issued ID matching the registration name, and online proctoring requires a private room, a clean desk and a continuous camera feed; a minor candidate needs an accompanying parent or guardian with ID. Results are reported as a scaled score and a pass or fail with section-level feedback rather than per-question detail, and most online appointments are available around the clock.