AWS Certification Learning Path
The best AWS certification order varies by your career goals. Here are 6 career paths with recommended exam sequences and estimated study time.
Cloud Engineer / Infrastructure
The classic route for cloud and infrastructure engineers — building up step by step from cloud foundations through design, operations, and large-scale architecture. Ideal for infrastructure engineers, SREs, and cloud architects, broadening your perspective at each level.
Build the shared vocabulary for all subsequent learning: cloud concepts, key services, pricing models, and the shared responsibility model. A solid foundation even without hands-on experience.
The core certification for combining services and selecting optimal solutions. Develop skills to compare architectures on availability, cost, and security — the foundation for all subsequent paths.
Strengthens the operations perspective: monitoring, automation, backup, and troubleshooting. Supplements design skills with the ability to keep what you build running reliably.
One of the toughest certifications — tests advanced design judgment: multi-account, multi-region, migration, and large-scale DR. Typically attempted after the Associate plus hands-on experience.
Backend Developer
The route for application developers mastering serverless, containers, and CI/CD on AWS. Grows from Developer to architect to DevOps, expanding skills across both code and infrastructure.
Get the big picture of AWS and its terminology first. Understanding where each service fits before diving into development dramatically improves learning efficiency.
Learn the services developers touch directly — Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, SQS/SNS — plus SDK usage, IAM roles, and deployment. Core knowledge that connects directly to daily coding.
Add a design lens to your developer perspective so you can select architectures accounting for availability and cost. Gives you a seat at architecture discussions.
The advanced certification bridging development and operations — CI/CD pipelines, IaC, monitoring, and automated recovery. The most accessible Professional for developers.
Data Engineer / Analytics
A route centered on building data pipelines and designing analytics platforms. Systematically covers collection, transformation, storage, and analysis using AWS services, while grounding you in cloud architecture fundamentals.
Establish the cloud fundamentals that underpin all data services. Understand storage, billing, and security basics first.
Learn the core of data ingestion, transformation, and analysis: Kinesis, Glue, Athena, Redshift, and S3 data lakes. The essential certification for data-focused roles.
Strengthen the network, availability, and cost design that supports data platforms. Develop the skills to keep pipelines reliable and cost-efficient.
AI / ML Engineer
A route covering AI fundamentals through production ML workloads and generative AI development. Built from recently introduced exams, it maps directly to AI/ML career paths.
Grasp foundational concepts of AI, machine learning, and generative AI, plus the positioning of AWS services like Bedrock and SageMaker. The ideal entry point for AI topics.
Learn the practical skills to run ML workloads in production — data prep, model training, deployment, and MLOps. SageMaker-heavy content.
The advanced certification for designing and developing generative AI applications — RAG, foundation model usage, and high-level generative AI knowledge.
Security Specialist
A route for systematically deepening security expertise on a foundation of cloud architecture knowledge. Covers IAM, encryption, threat detection, and compliance in a structured progression.
Establish the shared responsibility model and security basics. Understand what AWS protects and what the customer must protect before specializing.
Learn secure design including VPC, IAM, and encryption. Understand security in the context of the full architecture before specializing further.
Deep-dive into security: detailed IAM permission design, KMS, GuardDuty, incident response, and log auditing. Hands-on operational experience accelerates understanding.
Network Specialist
A route specializing in hybrid connectivity and large-scale network design. Builds on VPC fundamentals toward on-premises connectivity and multi-account network architecture.
Organize the basic terminology of cloud and networking. Build the shared foundation before specializing.
Systematically learn network design fundamentals: VPC, subnets, routing, and gateways. The best preparation for the specialty exam.
One of the most demanding specialty exams — covers Direct Connect, Transit Gateway, hybrid DNS, and large-scale routing. Hands-on networking experience is essentially a prerequisite.
Last updated: 2026-06-24
This page is created from AWS official documentation and reviewed/edited by the operator. See our editorial & quality policy for details.