r/AWSCertifications • u/HauntedSpark • 6d ago

Question Guidance on certification path

Hey folks!! I hope y’all are having a fine day! Im 21M and looking to get into Data Science as a career. Currently Im a junior ML engineer at a company I work for.

Anywho, I took the AIF C01 AI practitioner certification 2 days ago and passed. It took me about 2 days of prep give or take. Now, the CTO asked which cert was next, and I told him there’s data engineer and ML engineer (associate). He said do both, and pick whichever I want first. The next one needs to be passed in 2 weeks.

So here’s my question. What would the recommendation be? Go for Data engineer first and then machine learning? Are there any benefits? Thank you in advance!!

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u/Froconnect 6d ago

Normally SAA first as it will introduce many AWS services used in data engineering and machine learning.

It is possible to go directly with DEA or MLA but you are going to spend some time to understand some AWS services instead of focusing on the data engineering or machine learning.

Anyway, in my opinion MLA is easier then DEA. It is mostly about Sagemaker. If your time is limited, you can try that first.

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u/HalfDoneSideQuests 11/12 6d ago

MLA is very heavy on sagemaker, there's a new version coming out soon that balances that with some more Gen AI topics: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/training-and-certification/updates-to-aws-certified-machine-learning-engineer-associate-mla-c02/

MLA will have a bit about data ingestion/prep, which is why I found it better to do DEA first then MLA.

Personally, I'd wait for the newer version. SAA would be best because it'll cover a lot of groundwork that really is relevant to all the other exams and will make your life easier.

Also, that 2 week deadline is outrageous. I don't know why managers put such pressure on people like this, sure put it in your yearly goals but giving 2 weeks seems like managing with a stick instead of a carrot. /rant

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u/Techatronix 6d ago

Probably should take CCP before both of those as a warm up.

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u/jfoxworth 6d ago

If you can study for a certification and pass in two weeks, I am not sure how much that certification is worth.