get-certified

A list of courses and resources for getting tech certifications. I used these resources and passed the certification tests on the first attempt. Circa mid-2020s.

Terraform: Associate

• Course on KodeKloud or Udemy version of the same thing
• Practice exams (only) on ExamPro via this course

Prometheus: PCA

• Course on KodeKloud
• Practice exams on Udemy

NOTES:

• taking the practice exams course listed just above will leave you in an over-prepared state, as IMO they were harder than the actual exam.
• I can't say that I recommend getting this cert. It's fine but the others are more useful IMO.

Vault: Associate

• Course on KodeKloud
• Practice exams on Udemy

NOTES:

• The guy who teaches the Vault course on KodeKloud is the same instructor as this course on Udemy. Probably the same content.
• This course is thorough and detailed, sometimes to the point of tedium. Still, I found it to be a good intro course, even if you know little to nothing about Vault.

AWS: SAA

• Course on KodeKloud
• Practice exams (only) on ExamPro via this course

NOTES:

• Warning: The KodeKloud course for this cert is long and thorough. (Maybe too long?) There are a lot of example questions in the course video content that will help with practicing the art of identifying key phrases in the exam questions.
• There are practice questions in the KodeKloud course, but I found the practice exams in ExamPro to be more helpful.
• As of early December 2025, this was the most difficult exam in this list to pass. The sheer breadth of material is a challenge and I barely finished the exam in the time allotted. (I flagged too many questions as "review later".)

Platform Engineering: CNPA

• Course on KodeKloud

NOTES:

• I have many years of experience in software development, including CI/CD, as well as recent experience/familiarity with DevOps, SRE, and GitOps concepts and patterns. In light of that, this was an easy exam to pass.
• There are no detailed technical questions. This exam tests your familiarity with tools and concepts listed in the domains in the previous bullet.

Backstage: CBA

• Course on KodeKloud

NOTES:

• I have several years of frontend development experience in React, which helped a lot with passing this exam.
• This is another cert that doesn't seem that useful to me. Learn from my mistakes and don't bother with this one. I mean, the KodeKloud course is good for a short overview of Backstage, and I really like the instructor, but it seems like the cert itself doesn't mean much. 🤷