As cloud computing continues its rapid growth, employees with AWS cloud skills are in increasingly high demand. A great way to validate—and showcase— your knowledge of AWS services is through digital badges offered by AWS Training and Certification.
Basically, a digital badge is a way for you to publicly demonstrate (like on your LinkedIn profile, resume, or email signature), that you’ve developed a skill, passed an assessment, or even earned an AWS Certification. AWS uses Credly's digital credentials platform which allows you to share and verify your AWS certifications and other achievements. For example, once you pass an official AWS Certification exam, you can claim a digital badge which includes details like the certification name, date achieved, and expiration.
In addition to certification badges, AWS currently offers 18+ free digital badges earned through our self-paced online learning center, AWS Skill Builder.
What I really like about digital badges is that they link back to your credential details on Credly, so anyone can verify that you have, in fact, earned the certification or badge. As the AWS cloud continues rapid adoption, digital badges provide a simple yet secure method to highlight your AWS cloud knowledge.
Interested in compute? Storage? Machine Learning? As you complete free AWS Skill Builder lessons and assessments, you’ll earn badges in these topics and many more. Although not as prestigious or rigorous as earning an AWS Certification (which also award Credly badges), these learning badges demonstrate your knowledge and commitment to learning AWS services. And, if you’re thinking about taking a certification exam, earning a digital badge in the subject area could be a fun way to get started for free and with no risk. There is no charge for a learning badge knowledge assesment, and you can retake an assessment if you don’t do well on it.
Enroll – Search for the term "Knowledge Badge" and you will see all the available learning tracks. There is a wide selection here, including foundational topics like Cloud Practitioner, intermediate topics like storage and serverless compute, as well as more advanced topics including machine learning and quantum computing.
Complete the course and pass the free knowledge assessment.
If you’re new to the cloud, a great place to get started is the Cloud Essentials Knowledge Badge Readiness Path. This is a set of 5 free courses and a knowledge assement that you can take at any time. Once you pass the free learning assessment, you’ve earned a Badge! Additionally, many people have reported being able to pass the Cloud Practitioner certification exam after using this learning material.
You can add additional leaning paths to dive deeper into subjects you may need more help with. I recently finished up the block storage learning path. Although I’ve already obtained the Solutions Architect Professional Certification, I’m happy to report that I learned new things about Amazon S3. These digital classes dive deep. Next up, I’m looking to learn more about block storage with this learning path.
Which badge are you going to start with?
Any opinions in this post are those of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of AWS.
