AWS Golden Jacket: My Journey of Learning and Certification
Cloud technologies have been one of my biggest professional passions for many years, and AWS has played a significant role in that journey.
Through continuous learning, hands-on experience, and the pursuit of AWS certifications, I gained knowledge that helped me make better technical, architectural, and business decisions across a wide range of projects. Over time, I expanded my expertise across multiple AWS domains and eventually completed every AWS certification available at that time. As an award for these achievements, I was honored to receive the AWS Golden Jacket. This post is the story of that journey.
I hope it motivates individuals who are considering a similar path and helps remove some of the uncertainty surrounding AWS certifications.
When AWS was a DevOps-Only land
Long before I started pursuing AWS certifications, I still remember visiting the Certification Center located on the campus, where I completed multiple Oracle Java certifications. Every visit was an opportunity to meet other professionals preparing for exams—developers, DevOps engineers, project managers, analysts, and architects—each pursuing their own goals.
One thing stood out: AWS certifications were primarily taken only by DevOps engineers. At the time, many organizations treated AWS as an infrastructure-only domain. More then that - developers rarely had access to the AWS console, all these was DevOps responsibilities. Maybe it was due to carrier path requirements for DevOps that were built in the company.
Fortunately, I was working on a large distributed system hosted across AWS and Rackspace infrastructure. Because our development team participated in on-call rotations and incident response, gaining AWS access became a necessity rather than a privilege. And that was a moment when all started - EC2, S3, RabitMQ, SQS, SES, S3, Spark, RDS, EMR, Redshift. Working as developer I permanently was learning Cloud - it was given that missing feeling from Telco when you have access and control to equipment and servers infrasturcture distributed globe-wide.
SAA-C01: First AWS certification
Later, working in different startups and having experience with Amazon Web Services I already was driving the projects arthictetures, was involved into discoveries and PoCs, was helping others to learn AWS. At that moment I wanted to structure gained practical experience with Cloud and force it with certification with focus on real use cases and how they can be implemented with AWS. By that time I have scored all existing Oracle Java certifications and wanted to expand knowledge from Core Languages to Cloud Infrastructure.
Why I choose Architect certification — it gave a very quick and wide view to AWS ecosystem, its core principles, source of knowledge. At that moment I did not know anything about Golden Jacket and was keen to increase the expertise in AWS.
Next Certifications
Just after SAA-C01: Architect were DVA-C01:Developer and SOA-C01:SysOps - that were a great extension of AWS knowledge deeper to VPC level and CI/CD tools. Next was BDS-C00:BigData exam - amazing exam and content that you will not meet today it was all-in-one BigData, DataBases, Machine Learning at that time, enjoyed it a lot and used many concepts from it at many projects.
SCS-C01: Security - a MUST have caveat when you are working with AWS, only after that learning you have a full clear picture of IAM and permissions that allows you operate at multi-account organisation level aws accounts. I had exprerience working with huge enterprise companies that were using multiple accounts aggregated into organisation and the knowledge from this set always helped to find vulnerabilities, missconfigurations, show them to clients and fix the breaches.
SAP-C01: Professinal Architect is a strong hard exam that moves you to next the level, instead of knowing the landscape and integration of services it allows you deep dive into full end-to-end architecture and each service in isolation. DOP-P01: Devops Professional is a logical continuation - exam materials very coresspond to Architect plus added focus on IaC and infra. This match allows you fluently operate at complex infrastructure levels.
CLF-C01: Cloud Practitioner was more a check mark - at that moment there were opportunities and requests from customer for free AWS certification, so why not.
At that moment Big Data exam was retired and splitted into 3 new certifications - DBS-C01: Databases, DAS-C01: DataAnalytics and MLS-C01: Machine Learning, and it was a right decision. Each Certification allows deeply learn domains. Today all 3 of them are retiered and topics have migrated into different domain areas of other exams. This Data-oriented set of exams is a great to have in portfolio - every system in startup/enterprise has challanges and issues on persistence layer that require optimisation.
AIF-C01: AI Practitioner opens hot AI topic in AWS certification and later continued DEA-C01: Data Engineering and MLA-C01: ML engineering.
ANS-C01: AWS Advanced Networking - the Toughest Certification
Having a telecommunications background, I initially assumed this certification would be one of the easier ones. I had hands-on experience with radio and fiber-optic networks and had completed networking-related certifications from vendors such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, and Siemens. Networking was already part of my professional foundation.
But, my first attempt ended under circumstances completely outside my control. During the exam, a large-scale attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure caused a nationwide blackout. Power and internet connectivity disappeared instantly. By that point, I had already answered approximately 40 questions. When I later received the score report, I saw that I had achieved around 65% of the required score. It was impossible not to wonder whether I could have passed if I had been able to finish the exam.
My second attempt was even more frustrating. I scored 731 points, just 19 points below the passing score of 750. This time, the exam focused heavily on topics such as AWS Direct Connect, BGP routing, hybrid networking, and enterprise-scale connectivity patterns—areas that many cloud engineers rarely encounter in day-to-day work. Another challenge was the gap between exam preparation materials and the rapidly evolving AWS platform. Some learning resources contained information that was no longer fully aligned with current AWS services, limits, and best practices. While studying, I often found myself asking: Should I answer according to the latest AWS documentation, or according to the knowledge that existed when the exam questions were created? I chose to follow the most current AWS guidance, even when I suspected the exam might expect an older answer.
After this try I switched to other Certification that were more related to my projects activity and decided that ANS-C01 will be the last in chain. Once completed all certification, finally I returned again to ANS-C01. But this time I have another approach - by that time I have got some outdated CISCO network equipment, few tiny clients and assembled home LAB. With this setup, I experimented with technologies and scenarios — setup of vlans and advanced routing, passing connection of self-hosted Proxmox to Cloud with site-to-site vpn, layered DNS resolvers in cloud and on-prem, Deep packet inspection with snort, pfSence setup and integration with vlans. Now I’m using this stack at CCNA course and for PoCs. These practical setups, allows quickly refreshing the knowledge and try different setups. And finally, I completed the exam, even having some saved time after it with confidence of done.
ANS-C01: But it is for sure the most in-depth certification
Advanced Networking ultimately became one of the most rewarding certifications in my AWS journey. Once you understand networking at a deeper level, you begin to see AWS differently. You gain insight into how services communicate internally, how new AWS services are integrated into the broader ecosystem, and how managed services operate behind the scenes from own accounts and data plane connections. Certification goes far beyond networking itself. It changes how you think about architecture, scalability, resilience, and the design decisions that power modern cloud platforms.
My full AWS certification flow:
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
- AWS Certified Developer - Associate
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate
- AWS Certified Big Data - Specialty
- AWS Certified Security - Specialty
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
- AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty (Failed)
- AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty (Failed)
- AWS Certified Database - Specialty
- AWS Certified Data Analytics - Specialty
- AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty
- AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional (Recertified)
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional (Recertified)
- AWS Certified AI Practitioner
- AWS Certified Security - Specialty (Recertified)
- AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer - Associate
- AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty
Build your own path based on thing you are interested in, tasks, demand
One lesson I learned throughout my certification journey is that there is no universal roadmap. The best certifications are the ones that align with your interests, your responsibilities, and the problems you solve every day. I always choose certifications that were relevant to the projects I was working on. The knowledge gained during preparation helped me improve application performance, optimize infrastructure costs, strengthen security, and make better architectural decisions. Certifications are most valuable when they support real-world experience. Choose the path that helps you grow in the areas that matter most to your career, and the benefits will extend far beyond passing an exam.
Why learn AWS and certify
I quickly realized that AWS certifications provide a well-structured and detailed learning path that helps you focus on specific domains while also building a broad understanding of cloud technologies. The preparation materials are high quality and organized in a way that makes it easier to grow across different areas of expertise. Studying for these certifications strengthens knowledge across multiple domains, including AI/ML, DevOps, architecture, networking, and databases. This foundation allows you not only to communicate effectively with engineers and business stakeholders but also to contribute to a wide range of project-level decisions.
For me, AWS certifications became a powerful tool for self-improvement and continuous growth across roles such as architect, engineer, DevOps, networking, data, and AI. This hands-on expertise has helped me support multiple companies in solving complex, real-world challenges.
Golden Jacket it is not a collection of badges, it is your constant learning and growth
The knowledge it is not some fact table or absolute that you quote daily, it is a connected information from your experience in different domains, industries, languages, people, etc. As more bridges between this isolated islands you can establish - more effesiant you can utilise it. Cause the same principles of resilience and high availability are in financial systems, telco equipment. AWS Certifications allow you not only grow this islands, but rebuild them into mainland. On every next certification you fully rebuild your entire understanding and think about same components from multiple edges. This is very important to track targets from all angels and positions not only how everybody used to.
Everything Fails — Including Certification Attempts
Even failure is part of the process. There is no perfect study plan, perfect environment, or perfect exam day. Unexpected events can affect your preparation, concentration, internet connectivity, health, personal life, or simply your performance during the exam itself. Because of that, it is important not to view certification exams as something extraordinary or unattainable. You may fail an exam attempt, and that is perfectly normal. As engineers, we design systems with the assumption that failures will happen. Servers fail. Networks fail. Storage devices fail. Entire regions can fail. Resilient architectures are not built by pretending failures do not exist—they are built by planning for them and recovering from them.
The same principle applies to certifications. A failed exam is not the end of the journey. It is feedback. The score report highlights areas where your knowledge can be strengthened. It reveals gaps in understanding and often points to topics that deserve deeper practical experience. Every unsuccessful attempt provides valuable information that can help you prepare more effectively for the next one. All of the certifications I completed were passed on the first attempt, except one required additional study, more hands-on practice, and a different approach. Looking back, the certification that challenged me the most often became the ones from which I learned the most.
Success is not defined by never failing. Success is defined by how quickly you analyze what happened, adjust your approach, and continue moving forward. Treat certification failures the same way you would treat a production incident: investigate the root cause, identify improvements, implement corrective actions, and try again. The goal is not perfection. The goal is continuous growth.
AWS Certifications evolve with the IT Industry
One of the most common arguments against AWS certifications is that they expire after three years. At first glance, that may seem like a disadvantage. Why invest the time and effort if you need to recertify in the future? Your perspective will change once you understood how quickly AWS evolves.
Every year, AWS launches new services, introduces major features, updates architectural best practices, and expands into entirely new technology domains. Areas such as serverless computing, containers, machine learning, generative AI, observability, and security have changed dramatically over the last few years alone. Three years in cloud technology is a long time. The purpose of recertification is not simply to renew a badge. It is an opportunity to revisit your knowledge, learn what has changed, and stay current with the latest developments across the AWS ecosystem.
Another important aspect of the AWS certification program is its tiered structure. As you progress to higher-level certifications, AWS automatically renews related associate-level certifications. This means that maintaining advanced and professional certifications often helps keep your broader certification portfolio current as well. Several certifications that I earned no longer exist in their original form. AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty, AWS Certified Advanced Analytics – Specialty, and AWS Certified Database – Specialty have all been retired or replaced by newer certifications that better reflect the current industry focus.
Although the certifications themselves changed, the knowledge behind them did not disappear. The principles of data processing, analytics, database design, scalability, performance optimization, and architecture remain relevant regardless of how AWS restructures its certification portfolio. Technologies evolve, but foundational engineering concepts continue to provide value throughout your career. AWS has also experimented with highly specialized certifications over the years. Some, such as the AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder or SAP Specialty, targeted very specific domains and audiences. Others focused on technologies that were relevant to a particular period of AWS growth. This year AWS Advanced Machine Learning Specialty is also retiered and AWS GenAI Professional Developer is a new alternative to it.
This evolution is a sign of a healthy certification program. As the cloud industry changes, certifications must change as well. New technologies emerge, demand shifts, and learning paths adapt to reflect what engineers need to know today rather than what was relevant five years ago.
Instead of viewing the three-year validity period as a limitation, I see it as an invitation to continue learning. The cloud industry never stands still, and neither should we.
non-Certification Challanges
Preparing for and passing AWS certifications is not always about studying services, architectures, and best practices. Sometimes the biggest challenges come from circumstances completely outside your control.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, testing centers around the world suspended operations, making remote-proctored exams the primary certification option. Later, when the war in Ukraine began, the situation became even more complicated. Remote sessions were often the only available way to continue pursuing certifications.
For many candidates, a certification exam means going to comfortable center. For some of us, it also meant planning around air raid alerts, power outages, and uncertainty about whether connectivity would remain available throughout the exam session. A large-scale blackout interrupts remind you that even the best preparation cannot eliminate every external risk.
COVID-19. War. Blackouts. These were challenges, not excuses. If I was able to complete my certification journey under these circumstances, then temporary setbacks should never stop you from pursuing your own goals. Focus on what you can control, keep learning, and continue moving forward.
Once certified how to request AWS Golden Jacket
After completing all AWS certifications, there is no direct “order button” or automated system that tracks eligibility. Instead, access to the Golden Jacket program is typically handled through specific AWS-related communities and programs. Depending on your involvement with AWS, the path may go through one of the following channels:
- AWS Employee
- AWS Ambassador
- AWS Community Builder
- AWS Partner Organisation
One important detail that is often surprising: even AWS Technical Account Managers (TAM) may not always be familiar with the Golden Jacket process. In such cases, it is common to connect with other TAMs or AWS representatives who have previously supported similar requests.
Yes, this is you next challange, for me this process was scratched into 1 year.
Based on the program you have applied — delivery options differ. Some can deliver it to your home others require your mandatory in-personal presence on events like - re-Invent or AWS Summit. These are places where a special certification lounge is located to get you swags, receive Jacket, network with others.
The Hidden Benefit of Learning AWS
One unexpected benefit of my AWS certification journey was how much it expanded my knowledge beyond AWS itself. As you grow in cloud engineering, you begin to look beyond services and APIs. You become interested in what happens behind the scenes—operating systems, networking stacks, virtualization platforms, orchestration systems, databases, storage engines, and the open-source technologies that power modern cloud platforms. The deeper I went into AWS, the more I found myself exploring the technologies underneath it. This curiosity eventually led me to build my own home lab environment. Today, I run a self-hosted infrastructure based on Proxmox, pfSense, and a variety of open-source tools and services. It provides a practical environment for experimentation, learning, and validating architectural ideas before applying them in production environments.
This broader perspective makes it easier to design hybrid architectures, integrate cloud and on-premises systems, work across multiple cloud providers, and understand the technologies that power modern distributed systems.
AWS Subject-matter expert
I’m excited that was invited to join AWS Subject matter expert program, where I can contribute to certifications, review exams details. This is AWS certification program that is focus on improvement of exams quality.
Golden Jacket is not a final stop
The plans are continuing to lead the learning journey. Once I have the opportunity, will be thrilled to visit conferences re-Invent and Global Summits in person and network with other AWS Golden Jackets holders.
For those interested in AWS learning and certifications, I have created an application that facilitates faster learning and growth. You are welcome to join it.
I would like to thank everyone who supported, encouraged, challenged, and inspired me throughout this AWS journey — your guidance, knowledge, and motivation made this achievement possible.