1. Introduction

I’m excited to share that I passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) exam 🎉 with a score of 878/1000 on 20th August 2025.

You can view my official badge here 👉 AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Badge.

This certification took me 3 months of consistent preparation, and in this blog, I’ll share my resources, study plan, results, and tips that helped me succeed

2. Exam Overview

The SAA-C03 exam is scenario-focused, testing your ability to design secure, reliable, and cost-effective AWS solutions.

Exam Date: 20th August 2025
Duration: 130 minutes
Questions: ~65 (MCQ + multiple response)
Passing Score: 720
My Score: 878 ✅

Domain Performance (my breakdown):

Design Secure Architectures: ✅ Meets Competencies
Design Resilient Architectures: ✅ Meets Competencies
Design High-Performing Architectures: ✅ Meets Competencies
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures: ✅ Meets Competencies

3. Resources I Used

🎓 Udemy Course by Stéphane Maarek – my primary guide with hands-on demos.
🖥️ AWS Free Tier – practiced EC2, S3, RDS, IAM, VPC, CloudFront, Route 53.
📘 Udemy Practice Exams (Stéphane Maarek & Abhishek Singh) – 390+ questions with deep explanations.
▶️ YouTube: Digital Cloud Training – used for revision and quick summaries.

4. My 3-Month Study Plan

Month 1 – Completed Stéphane Maarek’s Udemy course + did AWS hands-on labs.
Month 2 – Revisited tough topics (IAM, VPC, storage classes) + more practice labs.
Month 3 – Took practice exams, fixed weak areas, and revised with Digital Cloud Training videos.

5. Exam Day Experience

Questions were heavily scenario-based.
Answer elimination helped narrow down to the best choice.
Time management was key — I flagged 10+ questions and came back later.

6. Tips for Aspirants

✅ Do as much hands-on practice as possible.
✅ Use practice exams to find and fix weak areas.
✅ Revise AWS FAQs for S3, EC2, RDS, IAM, VPC.
✅ Focus on understanding architectures, not just memorizing facts.

7. Conclusion

It took me 3 months to prepare, but earning the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) gave me both knowledge depth and confidence in cloud design.

My next goal is the AWS Certified AI Practitioner, to explore how cloud and AI can work together to solve real-world challenges.

How I Prepared for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03)