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- What does a backend engineer do? Make fun of front-end engineers.
- ―Reddit
It's been a few months! There hasn't been much to talk about until recently.
I just completed my AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification Exam with an 804 out of 1,000 and here's a few things I learned!
1) AWS has a LOT of services. 120 that I created flashcards for, to be exact. You can expect to be quizzed on any one of them and know what their purpose is. It's overwhelming at first, but breaking it down by category helps. There are lots of services that accomplish similar things, so having more than just a surface understanding helps.
2) I strengthened my understanding of networking and IT through an AWS lens. I already had a basic understanding of networking, but studying a comprehensive suite of services that AWS offers helped me review the basics and learn more about networking capabilities. Learning about AWS has me excited to deep dive further into other networking subjects and validates my decision that backend is the path for me.
3) I paid for the Enhanced Prep Course on AWS, which was tremendously helpful. Like with anything, the ability to seek outside resources is super important. Knowing how to Google further information on a subject, how to find YouTube videos, and search Reddit threads is INVALUABLE. I used Mohamed Ali's AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Practice Exams on Udemy for $20 to prepare for the exam and they were tremendously helpful as well.
4) I realized setting a deadline is important. I spent a few months studying off and on, which is for sure helpful, but I never set a date for the exam. Things aren't real until there's a deadline, at least for me. It wasn't until I set a test date two weeks ahead of time, which gave me plenty of time to buckle down and get into the material, that I really took things seriously. A critical part of achieving your goals is figuring out where the finish line is.
For now, I'm going to enjoy a few weeks of downtime, but my sights are set on the CompTIA Network+ as my next venture. I've decided that due to the lack of available jobs in software engineering I will be pivoting to cybersecurity as my area of focus. It has enough elements of backend to remain interesting to me and seems to be one of the few fields that hasn't been completely run over by AI.
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