How to become an AWS DevOps Engineer? – Updated 2025

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How to become an AWS DevOps Engineer?

In today’s cloud-driven world, organizations are racing to deliver software faster, smarter, and with greater reliability. This is where DevOps—a blend of development and operations—comes in. And when paired with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s leading cloud platform, it becomes a game-changing combination. If you have ever wondered how to break into this high-impact, high-paying role, you’re not alone. AWS DevOps Engineers are in high demand for their ability to automate, streamline, and secure cloud infrastructure while ensuring continuous delivery and operational excellence.

But how do you become one? In this blog, we’ll walk you through the roadmap—from understanding the core concepts and tools, to gaining the right certifications and hands-on experience—to help you launch or level up your career as an AWS DevOps Engineer. Whether you’re a developer, sysadmin, or completely new to cloud and DevOps, this guide is your first step toward building a future-proof skillset in one of the most dynamic fields in tech.

Are you planning to take an AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional Exam? Have you made up your mind to step into the field of Cloud Computing? Well, then you have landed in the right place, as the opportunities to learn and accelerate in this field are enormous. You just need the right kick start to begin your career. The AWS Certified DevOps Engineer-Professional certification exam is the way to move forward in your professional career and set a benchmark. It will help you explore new opportunities and provide you with better jobs.

Therefore, in this article, we will help you sail through all the required exam details required to pass the exam. Furthermore, we will be adding a few authentic learning resources to ease your process of preparation.

Introduction to AWS

Amazon Web Services or AWS is a platform provided by Amazon which offers an array of cloud computing services. AWS is a profusion of different cloud computing services and applications with higher ease of use, flexibility, and reliability. The basic agenda is to assess the candidate’s technical skills and operating skills. Moreover, the certification offered by AWS helps to enhance and upgrade skills for equal footing in the world of Cloud Computing. 

AWS offers an array of Certifications for all levels of learning as well as certification based on your role profile.

Benefits of AWS Certification

Now you will be thinking that how much is it worth to get AWS certified? Well, there are some benefits that are listed below which will help you become more clear with your thoughts and help you attain the certification. 

Some of the key benefits of becoming AWS Certified includes –

  • The certification boosts your understanding of AWS tools like Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and AWS IAM, among others. Moreover, it assists you in improving your skills and abilities.
  • AWS certification also helps to explore how multiple AWS services are connected and magnify each other.
  • You learn by trying a wide variety of useful AWS services that most practitioners some of which you might not be unaware of.
  • The certification provides a better understanding of AWS pricing and billing, enabling you to create solutions that are more cost-effective.

Overview: AWS DevOps Engineer Exam

The AWS Certified Devops Engineer Professional exam assesses your knowledge to use the most common DevOps patterns, i.e. to develop, deploy, and maintain applications in the AWS Cloud. Also, you will be required to enhance your technical skills as you proceed toward AWS Certification.

As an AWS DevOps Engineer, it is essential for you to pass the AWS Developer Associate and AWS SysOps Administrator certification Exam. Moreover, for this certification, you should be proficient in an advance level programming language. 

Exam Details

Now we will highlight the basic exam details considered crucial before you start preparing for the exam. The  AWS DevOps engineer exam is 170 minutes long. Though the examination comprises 80 questions as the number of questions keep on changing over time. Speaking of which, the candidate may encounter Multiple Choice and Multi-Response Questions. However, there are no prerequisites. And, as far as the language of the exam is concerned. The exam is only available in only 4 languages. Further, these include English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Korean. 

Exam Details for AWS DevOps Engineer Exam

Prerequisites 

For those interested in taking the exam, they must meet the prerequisites for the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional certification:

  • Firstly, you should have a minimum of 2 years’ experience handling, setting up, and overseeing AWS environments.
  • Secondly, you need to be skilled in an advanced programming language.
  • Lastly, it’s essential to have a solid grasp of operational procedures, modern development practices, and constructing highly automated infrastructure.

Course Outline

AWS certification DevOps certification exam will acknowledge the following 6 domains based on which you will be tested. In other words, each domain will contribute to a total percentage of your overall score.it will help you make a better understanding of how to study and which areas need to be focused especially in terms of the marks. The list of AWS Certified Devops Engineer Professional Course domains are stated below: 

Exam Detailed Course Outline

The AWS DevOps Engineer Professional (DOP-C02) Exam covers the following topics – 

Module 1: Understanding SDLC Automation (22%)

1.1: Implement CI/CD pipelines.

Required Knowledge 

  • Software development lifecycle (SDLC) concepts, phases, and models
  • Pipeline deployment patterns for single- and multi-account environments

Skills 

1.2: Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines.

Required Knowledge 

  • Different types of tests (for example, unit tests, integration tests, acceptance tests, user interface tests, security scans)
  • Reasonable use of different types of tests at different stages of the CI/CD pipeline

Skills 

1.3 Build and manage artifacts.

Required Knowledge 

  • Artifact use cases and secure management
  • Methods to create and generate artifacts
  • Artifact lifecycle considerations

Skills 

  • Creating and configuring artifact repositories (for example, AWS CodeArtifact, Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Container Registry [Amazon ECR]) (AWS Documentation: Create a repository)
  • Configuring build tools for generating artifacts (for example, CodeBuild, AWS Lambda) (AWS Documentation: Build specification reference for CodeBuild)
  • Automating Amazon EC2 instance and container image build processes (for example, EC2 Image Builder) (AWS Documentation: What is EC2 Image Builder?)

1. 4: Implement deployment strategies for instance, container, and serverless environments.

Required Knowledge 

  • Deployment methodologies for various platforms (for example, Amazon EC2, Amazon Elastic Container Service [Amazon ECS], Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service [Amazon EKS], Lambda)
  • Application storage patterns (for example, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS])
  • Mutable deployment patterns in contrast to immutable deployment patterns
  • Tools and services available for distributing code (for example, CodeDeploy, EC2 Image Builder)

Skills 

Module 2: Understanding Configuration Management and IaC (17%)

2.1 Define cloud infrastructure and reusable components to provision and manage systems throughout their lifecycle.

Required Knowledge 

  • Infrastructure as code (IaC) options and tools for AWS
  • Change management processes for IaC-based platforms
  • Configurations management services and strategies

Skills 

2.2 Deploy automation to create, onboard, and secure AWS accounts in a multiaccount/multi-Region environment.

Required Knowledge 

  • AWS account structures, best practices, and related AWS services

Skills 

2. 3: Design and build automated solutions for complex tasks and large-scale environments.

Required Knowledge 

  • AWS services and solutions to automate tasks and processes
  • Methods and strategies to interact with the AWS software-defined infrastructure

Skills 

  • Automating system inventory, configuration, and patch management (for example, Systems Manager, AWS Config) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager)
  • Developing Lambda function automations for complex scenarios (for example, AWS SDKs, Lambda, AWS Step Functions) (AWS Documentation: Getting started with Lambda)
  • Automating the configuration of software applications to the desired state (for example, OpsWorks, Systems Manager State Manager) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager State Manager)
  • Maintaining software compliance (for example, Systems Manager) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Compliance)

Module 3: Understanding Resilient Cloud Solutions (15%)

3.1 Implement highly available solutions to meet resilience and business requirements.

Required Knowledge 

  • Multi-AZ and multi-Region deployments (for example, compute layer, data layer)
  • SLAs
  • Replication and failover methods for stateful services
  • Techniques to achieve high availability (for example, Multi-AZ, multi-Region)

Skills 

3.2 Implement solutions that are scalable to meet business requirements.

Required Knowledge 

  • Appropriate metrics for scaling services
  • Loosely coupled and distributed architectures
  • Serverless architectures
  • Container platforms

Skills 

3.3 Implement automated recovery processes to meet RTO/RPO requirements.

Required Knowledge 

  • Disaster recovery concepts (for example, RTO, RPO)
  • Backup and recovery strategies (for example, pilot light, warm standby)
  • Recovery procedures

Skills 

Module 4: Monitoring and Logging (15%)

4.1 Configure the collection, aggregation, and storage of logs and metrics.

Required Knowledge 

  • How to monitor applications and infrastructure
  • Amazon CloudWatch metrics (for example, namespaces, metrics, dimensions, and resolution)
  • Real-time log ingestion
  • Encryption options for at-rest and in-transit logs and metrics (for example, client-side and server-side, AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS])
  • Security configurations (for example, IAM roles and permissions to allow for log collection)

Skills 

4.2 Audit, monitor, and analyze logs and metrics to detect issues.

Required Knowledge 

  • Anomaly detection alarms (for example, CloudWatch anomaly detection)
  • Common CloudWatch metrics and logs (for example, CPU utilization with Amazon EC2, queue length with Amazon RDS, 5xx errors with an Application Load Balancer)
  • Amazon Inspector and common assessment templates
  • AWS Config rules
  • AWS CloudTrail log events

Skills 

4.3 Automate monitoring and event management of complex environments.

Required Knowledge 

  • Event-driven, asynchronous design patterns (for example, S3 Event Notifications or Amazon EventBridge events to Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS] or Lambda)
  • Capabilities of auto scaling a variety of AWS services (for example, EC2 Auto Scaling groups, RDS storage auto scaling, DynamoDB, ECS capacity provider, EKS autoscalers)
  • Alert notification and action capabilities (for example, CloudWatch alarms to Amazon SNS, Lambda, EC2 automatic recovery)
  • Health check capabilities in AWS services (for example, Application Load Balancer target groups, Route 53)

Skills 

Module 5: Incident and Event Response (14%)

5.1 Manage event sources to process, notify, and take action in response to events.

Required Knowledge 

  • AWS services that generate, capture, and process events (for example, AWS Health, EventBridge, CloudTrail, CloudWatch Events)
  • Event-driven architectures (for example, fan out, event streaming, queuing)

Skills 

  • Integrating AWS event sources (for example, AWS Health, EventBridge, CloudTrail, CloudWatch Events) (AWS Documentation: Events from AWS services)
  • Building event processing workflows (for example, Amazon Simple Queue Service [Amazon SQS], Kinesis, Amazon SNS, Lambda, Step Functions) (AWS Documentation: Using Lambda with Amazon SQS)

5.2 Implement configuration changes in response to events.

Required Knowledge 

  • Fleet management services (for example, Systems Manager, AWS Auto Scaling)
  • Configuration management services (for example, AWS Config)

Skills 

5.3 Troubleshoot system and application failures.

Required Knowledge 

  • AWS metrics and logging services (for example, CloudWatch, X-Ray)
  • AWS service health services (for example, AWS Health, CloudWatch, Systems Manager OpsCenter)
  • Root cause analysis

Skills 

  • Analyzing failed deployments (for example, AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CloudFormation, CloudWatch synthetic monitoring) (AWS Documentation: Monitoring deployments with Amazon CloudWatch tools)
  • Analyzing incidents regarding failed processes (for example, auto scaling, Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS) (AWS Documentation: Autoscaling)

Module 6: Security and Compliance (17%)

6.1 Implement techniques for identity and access management at scale.

Required Knowledge 

  • Appropriate usage of different IAM entities for human and machine access (for example, users, groups, roles, identity providers, identity-based policies, resource-based policies, session policies)
  • Identity federation techniques (for example, using IAM identity providers and AWS Single Sign-On)
  • Permission management delegation by using IAM permissions boundaries
  • Organizational SCPs

Skills 

6.2 Apply automation for security controls and data protection.

Required Knowledge 

  • Network security components (for example, security groups, network ACLs, routing, AWS Network Firewall, AWS WAF, AWS Shield)
  • Certificates and public key infrastructure (PKI)
  • Data management (for example, data classification, encryption, key management, access controls)

Skills 

6.3 Implement security monitoring and auditing solutions.

Required Knowledge 

  • Security auditing services and features (for example, CloudTrail, AWS Config, VPC Flow Logs, CloudFormation drift detection)
  • AWS services for identifying security vulnerabilities and events (for example, GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, IAM Access Analyzer, AWS Config)
  • Common cloud security threats (for example, insecure web traffic, exposed AWS access keys, S3 buckets with public access enabled or encryption disabled)

Skills 

While preparing for this certification exam just make your mind free and create a study plan in which you are most comfortable. It is important to be stress-free, focused and also get experience in the AWS environment to get some advantage in this. Here is the AWS Certified Devops Engineer Professional Study Guide that highlights resources you should follow for the exam preparation:

Learning Resource 1: Review the exam objectives

First things first, you don’t have the entire time in the universe to prepare for the exam. That being said, basically what’s important for an individual before taking this exam is to have complete research about the exam pattern and concepts. Therefore, it becomes important on an individual’s part to do a smart study where you need to focus on the topics that carry more weightage. Doing so will help you prepare better for the exam.

Learning Resource 2: Online AWS training programs

After that, you need to start your hunt for the most reliable as well as the authentic website to study from. There are various websites that provide certification and training to pass the AWS certificate exam with practice sample papers. They even provide a trial for free before you decide to buy the complete training material. Just look for the suitable AWS Certified DevOps Engineer-Professional training course and sign up for it.

Learning Resource 3: Tutorials

Subsequently, there are various tutorials available on the internet which can help you increase your learning pace for the exam. Adding tutorials to your learning resources adds nothing, but an advantage in your preparation process. No matter if you follow the order or not, these AWS tutorials are a great page for bookmarking and going back to if you get stuck.

Learning Resource 4: Books

Furthermore, you can refer to various books available in the market place. There are reference books that are available for AWS DevOps Engineer Professional exam. To name a few,

  • AWS Automation Cookbook by Nikit Swaraj
  • Continuous Delivery and DevOps – Quickstart by Paul Swartout
  • Implementing DevOps on AWS by Veselin kantsev
  • Effective DevOps with AWS by Nathenial Felson

Learning Resource 5: Practice Tests

Finally, and definitely importantly, to grasp the concepts well, allocate time for frequent AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional practice exams. These practice tests help you assess your capabilities and work on your weaker points. So, ensure you complete a substantial number of practice tests to excel in the exam. Give your preparation a satisfying revision

Glossary: AWS DevOps Engineer – Updated 2025

  • AMI (Amazon Machine Image): A template used to create a virtual machine (EC2 instance) on AWS.
  • Auto Scaling: Automatically adjusts the number of EC2 instances to handle traffic spikes or drops.
  • Blue/Green Deployment: A deployment strategy that reduces downtime by switching traffic between two identical environments.
  • CloudFormation: AWS service for infrastructure as code (IaC), allowing you to provision resources using templates.
  • CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery): Practice of frequently integrating code into a shared repository and automating its delivery.
  • CloudWatch: Monitoring and observability service for AWS resources and applications.
  • CodeBuild: Fully managed build service that compiles source code and runs tests.
  • CodeCommit: AWS’s version-controlled source code repository (like Git).
  • CodeDeploy: Automates application deployment to EC2, Lambda, or on-prem servers.
  • CodePipeline: CI/CD orchestration tool to automate build, test, and deploy phases.
  • Container: A lightweight, standalone, executable package (e.g., Docker) that includes everything needed to run an application.
  • DevOps: A cultural and professional movement that stresses communication, collaboration, integration, and automation between software developers and IT operations.
  • EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): Scalable virtual servers on AWS.
  • Elastic Beanstalk: PaaS for deploying and managing applications in the cloud without worrying about the infrastructure.
  • Git: Distributed version control system used in most DevOps pipelines.
  • GitOps: Managing infrastructure and application configurations using Git as a source of truth.
  • IAM (Identity and Access Management): AWS service for managing access to resources securely.
  • IaC (Infrastructure as Code): Managing infrastructure using code and automation tools like CloudFormation or Terraform.
  • Kubernetes (EKS): Open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. EKS is AWS’s managed Kubernetes service.
  • Lambda: Serverless compute service that runs your code in response to events.
  • Load Balancer (ELB): Distributes incoming traffic across multiple targets (EC2 instances, containers, IPs).
  • Monitoring: Practice of observing systems (using tools like CloudWatch, Prometheus, or Datadog) to ensure optimal performance.
  • Microservices: Architecture style where an application is composed of loosely coupled services.
  • NAT Gateway: Enables private instances to connect to the internet without exposing them to incoming traffic.
  • Pipeline: A set of automated processes for building, testing, and deploying code.
  • Provisioning: Process of setting up IT infrastructure.
  • Route 53: AWS DNS and domain registration service.
  • RDS (Relational Database Service): Managed relational database service (MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.).
  • S3 (Simple Storage Service): Object storage for files, backups, logs, etc.
  • Security Groups: Virtual firewalls for EC2 instances controlling inbound and outbound traffic.
  • Serverless: A model where you don’t manage servers (e.g., AWS Lambda).
  • Terraform: IaC tool by HashiCorp used for provisioning and managing cloud infrastructure (also works with AWS).
  • Tagging: Assigning metadata to AWS resources for tracking and cost management.
  • VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): Your private network in AWS that isolates resources securely.
  • Version Control: Tracking and managing changes to code (e.g., using Git).
  • Well-Architected Framework: AWS best practices guide for building secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure.

Expert’s Corner

In conclusion, obtaining an AWS certification is a smart decision for anyone in the IT field. But remember, becoming certified requires dedication, so you should pick the right time for training. In the end, the AWS certification will undoubtedly be advantageous, and all the time and effort you invest will be truly worthwhile!

We hope that we have provided all the required and relevant information to clear your doubts. Furthermore, the article will surely help you clear your thoughts and will help you make a good decision for your career growth.

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