After more than 8 years writing PHP code, I decided to take a leap into the cloud. It wasn’t an easy transition, but I can say it was worth every hour of study.
Why AWS
As a backend developer, I was already interacting with AWS services without realizing it — S3 for files, RDS for databases, EC2 for servers. But I wanted to understand the full picture.
The Certification Path
I started with the Cloud Practitioner in 2022, which gave me a solid foundation of cloud concepts. Then, in 2025, I achieved the Solutions Architect Associate, which required a much deeper understanding of:
- Designing resilient architectures
- High-performance architectures
- Secure architectures
- Cost optimization
Tips For Other Developers
If you’re a developer considering AWS certification, here are my tips:
- Don’t stop coding — The certification complements your dev experience
- Practice with labs — Theory without practice isn’t enough
- Study the whitepapers — Especially the Well-Architected Framework
- Join communities — Sharing experiences accelerates learning
The combination of knowing how to build software AND understanding the infrastructure it runs on is incredibly powerful.
What’s Next
I’m now exploring how to integrate serverless services with my existing Laravel applications. Lambda + API Gateway + PHP Custom Runtime is a combo few people explore, and I think it has a lot of potential.
See you in the next post!