Passing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) - My experience

Just yesterday, I successfully passed AWS Solutions Architect - Associate (SAA-C03) exam. In this post, I’d like to share my experience - not only from the exam itself, but also from the entire preparation process that led up to it. I’ll also touch on my motivation and leave you with a few takeaways if you’re planning to take this exam in the future.

Why?

Cloud computing has always been present somewhere in the background of my work. Even though my role doesn’t give me much direct exposure to it, I could see how strongly modern applications depend on cloud services.

Over time, I became curious about how it actually works behind the scenes. It felt like something I indirectly used every day, but never fully understood. At some point, that started to feel like a gap I wanted to close.

My main motivation was simple: I wanted to understand an important part of how modern applications are built. At the same time, I wanted to improve my overall understanding of technology and not feel like I’m only seeing a small part of the picture.

Another reason was personal growth. I wanted to expand my set of tools, become a better engineer, and feel more confident working with modern systems.

Overall, it felt like a natural step forward.

My preparation process

I tracked my entire study process using Clockify app. In total, I spent around 118 hours studying over roughly 3.5 months. That might sound like a long time, but it’s worth noting that I started from scratch with little to no prior cloud experience.

To avoid burnout, I stuck with my usual Pomodoro technique, which helped me stay consistent without overloading myself.

The entire process can be divided into two main parts:

1. Online Course
2. Practice Exams

Online Course

I choose Adrian Cantrill’s Solutions Architect Course. This course was recommended to me by colleagues and various blog posts, so I decided to give it a try. It’s quite long - around 66 hours, but u can comfortably watch it at 1.25x or even 1.5x speed, especially if you turn on subtitles. As a non-native English speaker, I had no issues following along at 1.5x. This also freed up more time for taking notes, which I highly recommend.

The course does a great job of explaining core AWS concepts in depth, and I consider it an excellent starting point for anyone entering the AWS ecosystem. It covers most of the exam scope by building a strong foundation in essential services and gradually introducing more advanced topics. The lessons are informative, well-structured, and rich in content. Concepts are clearly visualized, and the quality of the visual materials is high. The course also includes plenty of scenario-based explanations, which help connect theory with real-world use cases. Additionally, the demos provide hands-on experience with the things discussed in the theoretical sections.

That said, while I really like this course, it’s not perfect. Its comprehensiveness could be improved by covering the full scope of the exam in more detail, particularly services such as Elastic Beanstalk, EMR, and Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP.

As of Spring 2026, the course also feels slightly outdated. This is noticeable in few areas - for example in the AWS Organizations section, the course author does not mention some recent but important changes to AWS Free Tier. One such a change is when AWS Account joins the Organization all AWS Free Tier credits are immediately revoked and can’t be restored. The only option to use AWS Free Tier is to create another set of AWS Accounts that will not join the Organization. Situations like this can be confusing/annoying especially since the course relies heavly on Free Tier usage when recreating the demos.

That said, I feel this gap is likely temporary. Based on Adrian’s public Roadmap, an update to the course is planned, where these inconsistencies will likely be adressed and the content brought fully up to date.

Practice Tests

I used the Practice Exams from Tutorial Dojo.
Besides the standard full 65-question tests, they offer several different modes with different goals, such as:

• Timed Mode - focuses on time pressure,
• Review Mode - answers with detailed explanations,
• Section-based - questions from specific domains,
• Topic-based - focuses on specific service like S3, EBS etc.
• They also recently added flashcards as an extra learning tool

Personally, I started with a full 65-question test right after finishing the course to check my knowledge. Later, I did a few rounds of Review Mode, where I scored around 80–90% on final attempts. The answers and explanations were very helpful and made it easier to fill in knowledge gaps. They were clear and easy to understand. I also tried Section-based mode for weaker areas, but I didn’t spend much time on it. The same goes for flashcards - they’re a nice addition, but a bit too general for my taste. However, they also provide very useful cheat sheets that cover almost all of the available topics. Definitely worth checking out.

Even though the course I used also includes some practice tests, the ones from Tutorial Dojo feel much closer to the real exam.

Exam day

Test centers aren’t really my thing, so I decided to take a proctored exam instead. The exam was scheduled to 11:15, and I started the check-in process about 20 minutes beforehand. The whole check-in process was almost identical to the one I went through when I took the Oracle Certified Associate Java 8 exam back in 2019. As part of it, I had to take photos of my testing space and then do a short walkthrough with my webcam to show the room.

Once the exam began, I moved slowly through the questions, flagging the ones I wasn’t sure about for review. After the first hour, I picked up the pace a bit because I didn’t want to run out of time. Still, I ended up with 20 minutes to spare, which was surprising.

I received the badge notification around midnight, but I had to wait until 9am the next day for the results.

I passed :D

Takeaways

• Planning → preparation is a long process, so be sure to use calendar and divide your learning process into managable pieces, i.e 10h per week + leave some buffer. _{life can be upredicatable}
• Save up time → try watching the course on x1.25 or even x1.5 speed (with subtitles) if you can.
• Cantrills Solutions Architect Course? → take additional Practice Tests. I can recommend the ones from Tutorial Dojo.
• Extra time on exam → If you’re a non-native English speaker, you can request an extra 30 minutes, but you have to do it BEFORE you schedule your exam.
• Exam day → Get a good night’s sleep and don’t drink too much before the exam.

That’s all folks!
TP