Passed first try. Honestly I was kind of bracing for it to be harder than it was, but looking back I think that says more about the course I used than the exam itself.
// What I used to study
Stephane Maarek's course on Udemy, start to finish. If you're looking at this cert and googling what to use, just get that one. It's the right length, covers everything at the right depth, and Stephane actually explains why things exist before going into what they do. That made a big difference for me. I wasn't just memorising a list of AWS services, I was understanding what problems they were solving.
I'd watch a section, then close the laptop and try to explain it back in my own words. Sounds basic but it's the fastest way I know to find out what you actually understand versus what you just heard.
// The exam itself
Honestly pretty fair. Nothing felt like a trick. If you've done the course and you get why each service exists, you'll be fine. The hardest bits for me were the billing and pricing questions, not because they're complex, just because it's dry material and easy to gloss over.
Passed on Feb 17th 2026. Already started SAA the next morning.
// What surprised me most
How genuinely interesting it was. I went in thinking it'd be a slog of definitions and pricing tiers. It turned out to be the most interested I'd been in learning something in a long time. Understanding how regions, availability zones and IAM fit together, it all just clicked. The cloud stopped feeling like a buzzword and started feeling like something I actually understood.
Onwards to SAA.