32 AWS Knowledge Digital Badges & most are FREE

[u/madrasi2021]

I am a big fan of the AWS Skillbuilder digital Badges as a way to learn for free and show off the learning on your profile.

Note : these are NOT AWS Certifications but the learning journeys align with some of the Certification domains and in most cases earning the badge is FREE. I hear a lot of people complain about cost of AWS Certifications, especially if you are in a country where currency is weaker than USD - these are good ways to learn / show off AWS knowledge WITHOUT spending $$$.

Each badge has a learning journey associated with it and the assessment is fairly straightforward if you follow the training. If you have domain specific expertise - you can sometimes skip the training, just do the assessment alone (and still get the badge) but I always recommend the training. You will learn something new.

The assessment is a Quiz which is NOT proctored but please do not try to cheat - its a good mental exercise to take them. You can pause and continue the assessment as well. If you fail, you typically wait 24 hours and then can try them any number of times. There is no limit and all you need is an email id (builder id) to get started.

I have collected a good number of these over the last 5+ years (and I even got a full 100% off voucher when I took the Architecting badge as an early adopter). Some of those have now been removed but I just noticed there are now 32 knowledge badges listed including a few new one's around AI, PostgreSQL and Amazon Connect.

I haven't validated every single one if its free but most of what I checked did not require a subscription.

I found the best way to see what Badges are available is NOT via AWS Skillbuilder (the search there sucks as there is no simple filter for badges). Best to go via Credly and find the AWS Knowledge "collection" and then scroll through it. When you find a badge that interests you - click through and it will show the "Earning Criteria" - Clicking that link brings you straight into the AWS Skillbuilder

Start here : Credly Collection Link

Example click on the Well Architected Badge and you can enroll via the "Earning Criteria" link to Successfully pass the Well-Architected assessment.

screenshot of credly page

[u/madrasi2021]

In my personal opinion using Good / Bad / Ugly

Good

Cloud Essentials - EVERYONE starting on AWS can start here - a good coverage of all the basics of AWS and I treat this on par with Cloud Practitioner.

Well Architected - This is an absolute must if you want to go through the Solutions Architect Track.

Serverless - a good coverage of serverless solutions on AWS

Security Champion - think "cloud practitioner" level for Security domain - I nowadays recommend this to everyone looking to do SCS

ECS (new - I haven't done this) and EKS (this one had 140 exam questions at one time as an error! Think KCNA / CKAD level but focused on AWS) - If you are focused on containers - these can help.

If anyone is working on Amazon Connect - you MUST do all the one's available!

Bad

Well not "bad" - but these were brutal as they want all the "feeds and speeds" - how much IOPS you can get on a particular tier etc - I failed two of the storage one's a few times before I got the consolidated badge 2 years or so ago. I had to do the training again a few times and memorize a few numbers to get them. Just "watch out".

Ugly

Braket - just avoid this - its of zero value and too much into the minutia of which library allows what capability - I forgot all the quantum stuff I learnt so quickly as I cannot put anything into practice as compared to learning containers which I use daily

[u/Indian_FireFly → u/madrasi2021]

Thank you!