Is it possible to pass Solutions Architect Pro or DevOps Engineer Pro purely through hands-on labs (building your own projects), without relevant work experience in those roles?

I've heard that SA Pro covers a lot of multi-account and multi-region scenarios, which seem hard to replicate with labs only. For those who have already passed, how much experience did you have, and what made the real difference in passing the exam?

Hey folks!

I had scheduled my SAA-C03, life came at me a bit sideways and I didn’t get to study for more than an hour. Took the test today (Almost didn’t go because I knew I’d fail) Finished the last question with less than a minute to spare. Somehow, passed…. By a very small margin.

Now my concern is, if I’m out here saying I’m certified and get asked what I scored in a professional setting it’s almost not worth bringing up. Should I retest? I know I can do much better.

Thanks for any insights.
Cheers

AWS has announced a major update to the AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate exam, evolving it from MLA-C01 to MLA-C02.

The interesting part? The domain structure remains the same, but the exam is expanding significantly to reflect how the ML Engineer role is changing with Generative AI

What’s new in MLA-C02?

The updated exam will add more focus on:

• Generative AI implementation and deployment
• Foundation Models and Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures
• Agentic AI and AI workflow orchestration
• Amazon Bedrock and GenAI workloads
• Fine-tuning and customization of foundation models
• Responsible AI practices
• Production-scale ML and GenAI operations

Traditional ML and MLOps are still core parts of the certification, so MLA-C02 looks like a broader combination of ML Engineering + MLOps + GenAI/LLMOps skills.

Important dates:

• September 1, 2026 – MLA-C02 beta registration opens and the new exam guide is released
• September 28, 2026 – Last day to take MLA-C01 in English
• September 29, 2026 – MLA-C02 beta exam delivery begins
• Early 2027 – Standard MLA-C02 expected across all supported exam languages

So I have been working in HR and Risk. I don't really use a lot of AI or tech so don't have background.

I have been given a voucher from work for AWS AI Practitioner through Pearson and I have less than a month.

I tried to get resources but I am unable to narrow down options.

Is it possible for someone to tell me how can I prepare myself for it? I want to upskill so that I don't eventually lose my job.
Can someone help please ?

Hey everyone, I'm preparing for SAA exam and I wanted to ask how much time should i give the preparation i dont want to overdo it as to forget the the deep technical details or grip over the concepts, and i dont want to fail it on the first attempt. Any advice would be appreciated.
Also, how much time did it take you to prepare for the exam?

Hey everyone, I'm preparing for SAA exam by taking Adrian cantrills course and i need guidance with how i should take notes, currently, im taking handwritten notes(just the important bullet point things) as i watch the videos and then i screenshot the slides in the lectures and give it to Gemini(Since Adrians course doesn't have transcripts) to get a deeper understanding of the concepts and also save everything up in a document for later revision.
Am i doing it right?
Am i wasting time somehow?
I would really appreciate if you guys could give me some tips on note taking so i dont waste unnecessary time while also prepare for the exam as to pass it on the first attempt.

I'm doing my undergrad in Mathematics and Physics and Have 2 years left. I am planning to do a Master's in Mathematics (Applied Math) ,Theoretical Physics , Astrophysics or Quantum Technologies/Physics. I have thought about Courses like Machine Learning/Data Science/AI as well. I don't know what career I'm looking for, but Tech is in my mind.

Would it be worth doing an AWS certification during my undergrad to get some work experience in tech? Would these be valuable for when it comes to applying to internships?

I currently know Typescript, Java and Python fluently as I've learnt these over the years, why did I not do a computer science degree??? don't ask me that haha. I'm planning on Learning either C# or Go next. Quite interested in Ruby as well but there's so many languages UGRGH. I have 3 projects so far. But when it comes to computer science and tech I don't hold any official qualifications.

Do you think It's worth getting an AWS certification? If so, Which certifications should I consider? For example AWS cloud practitioner sounds non negotiable because it literally introduces you to the AWS platform. I hear a lot of people prefer going onto doing the solutions architect professional certification.

A few months ago, I decided to make the jump back into tech after spending time in a completely different industry. Today, I’m excited to say I passed my AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam!
There were definitely moments where cloud concepts felt overwhelming, but I kept pushing—watching AWS Skill Builder courses, taking pages of notes, building projects, and asking a lot of questions until everything started to click.
I’m not stopping here.
Next up: AWS Certified AI Practitioner
After that: Solutions Architect Associate, which is the career I’m ultimately working toward.
Alongside studying, I’ve also been building my own AWS-powered projects. One is wav.arena, a serverless music battle platform where producers can anonymously compete head-to-head. It’s been an incredible way to apply what I’m learning beyond the exam objectives and gain hands-on experience with AWS services.
I’m also developing ZoneRouter, a map-centric route optimization platform for field service companies, giving me even more opportunities to learn cloud architecture by actually building solutions.
The certifications are important, but my bigger goal is becoming someone who can design, build, and deploy scalable cloud applications that solve real-world problems.
For those who’ve already taken AI Practitioner or Solutions Architect Associate, what advice would you give someone starting that journey?
One cert down. Many more to go. 🚀☁️