What is the Salary of an AWS Certified Solutions Architect?

Back in the Spring of 2013, AWS released its certification programs. Could anyone then foresee how popular AWS certifications would become in a short period? For many years to come, it is expected, there would be a huge growth in the demand for AWS solutions architects worldwide. AWS certification exams can be given in multiple languages today, and millions of students are interested in knowing what they can obtain from an AWS certification.

Today AWS certifications have become very significant. The adoption rate of AWS is the biggest reasons why career opportunities and salaries are continuously increasing in this domain. Over 16000 IT professionals who participated in IT skills and salary survey in 2018, and 807 IT professionals out of them said that they hold an AWS certification.

Why should you go for AWS Certifications?

AWS certifications offer some clear benefits as discussed below:

• It increases the marketability to employers.
• It makes you more skilled in the competitive world.
• It is one of high-paying IT certifications as per the market analysis.

If you are planning to take the AWS certification test, then it is just the right step for your career. An AWS solution architect is the most amazing profile that can give you excellent salary packages at the professional level as expected by you.

The average salary of an AWS certified person is roughly estimated $113,000, the highest of all certifications in the USA and Canada. There are certifications for the associate and professional-level developers dedicated to different roles like system administrators or solution architects, etc.

Here are quick highlights of popular AWS certifications what you need to know to earn them. Our main focus is to discuss AWS certified solution architect profile in detail here and salary related to the same profile.

AWS Certifications	Average Salaries (2018)
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate	$117,773
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional	$136,259
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer	$125,743
AWS Certified Developer – Associate	$112,984
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate	$125,148

Who is an AWS Solution Architect?

An AWS Solution Architect is responsible for creating, designing, and implementing arrangements for business. He can identify current business problems and suggests the best solutions for the same. He focuses on current and future business goals when working on business problems. He should be able to work with different departments of an enterprise like mentoring, planning, management, deployment, development, etc.

Read: Top 15 AWS Solution Architect Interview Questions and Answers

The job requires a bachelor’s degree in computer science, IT, and software engineering, etc. he needs several years of administration experience and high level of creativity, concentration, leadership, and problem-solving skills, etc. He should have extensive knowledge of AWS platform, computer, or software as discussed earlier. Here is a quick idea of how much a solution architect earns in different regions.

AWS Solution architects for different regions

New York	$170,000
California	$170,000
Florida	$156,000
Massachusetts	$150,000
Illinois	$148,750
New Jersey	$131,625

AWS Solution Architects Salary by Experience

Pay by experience for an AWS solution architect shows the positive trend. The salary for entry-level professionals is $119,250 per years, and it goes up to $200,000 per year for highly experienced professionals. The average salary of an AWS solution architect is $162,000 per year or $83.33 per hour.

Solution Architect tasks

• He is responsible for translating business needs or requirements into functional solutions.
• He is responsible for preparing documents, testing reports, test data, etc.
• He identifies current business problems and areas for process improvements too.
• He sets the priority for goals and objectives and monitoring other activities too.
• He designs and develops technical solutions based on available technology solutions.

AWS Certified Solution Architects – Associate and Professionals

This certification is available in both modes – Associate Level and the Professional Level. You should earn associate-level certification before you register for the professional-level certification.

1). Associate Level Certification

Based on IT skills and salary survey in 2018, the average salary of an AWS certified solution architect at the basic level is $117,773 per year. Here are a few facts you should know before you register for this certification:

• The exam consists of multiple-choice questions, and it takes 80 minutes to complete. This exam is administered at PSI centers across the USA.
• This exam validates your technical skills in developing and maintaining apps on the AWS platform.
• This exam tests your knowledge of picking the right AWS services for your application.
• This exam tests your knowledge for using SDKs to interact with AWS services from your application.
• You should know how to write code that optimizes the performance of apps using AWS services.
• You should know how to secure apps like encryption scheme, credentials, IAM roles, etc.

2). Professional Level Certification

Based on IT skills and salary survey in 2018, the average salary of an AWS certified solution architect at the professional level is $136,259 per year. Here are a few facts you should know before you register for this certification:

• The exam consists of multiple-choice questions, and it takes 170 minutes to complete. This exam is administered at PSI centers across the USA.
• This exam tests your knowledge to design and deploy dynamically scalable, highly available, fault-tolerant, and more reliable apps on the AWS platform.
• You should know how to select the right AWS services to design or deploy apps based on given requirements.
• You should know how to migrate multi-tier and complex apps on the AWS.
• You should know to deploy and designing enterprise-wide apps on the AWS platform.
• You should know how to implement cost control strategies.

Prerequisites for AWS solution architect- Associate exam

Here are some prerequisites that can help you in earning associate level certification.

Read: What is AWS CLI? How to Install AWS CLI?

• Hands-on expertize in designing and maintaining AWS apps.
• Depth knowledge of high-level programming languages.
• A basic understanding of core AWS services and basic AWS architecture.
• Best practices for implementing AWS Services.
• Hands-on expertize in developing and maintaining apps written for different AWS platforms.

AWS Skills Required:

• He should know how to use AWS technology in the workplace.
• He should have hands-on experience in programming with AWS APIs.
• He should know the best practices for implementing AWS Security.
• He should know about automation and best deployment AWS tools.
• He should know about storage options and underlying consistency models.
• He should have an excellent idea of working with AWS SDK.

General IT Skills Required:

• He should know about distributed apps.
• He should be familiar with RESTful API interfaces.
• He should know about relational and non-relational databases.
• He should be familiar with RESTful web services, JSON, XML, etc.
• He should be familiar with software development lifecycle models.
• He should have working experience with application security standards.

Recertifications

AWS associate-level certification should be recertified every two years to remain valid. Here are two ways to maintain your certifications.

1. Attempt the recertification exam. It is not as tough as the original one but asks you question on the latest trends and techniques in AWS.
2. You can go for the professional level exam and add one more certification to your resume to get identified by top recruiters.

In the next section, we will be discussing prerequisites for AWS professional level certification exam and skills required to earn AWS professional level certification.

Prerequisites for AWS solution architect- Professional exam

Here are some prerequisites that can help you in earning professional level certification.

• To apply for professional level certification, you need to earn basic-level certification first.
• You should have a minimum of two years of experience in designing and deploying cloud architecture on the AWS platform.
• He should be able to explore cloud application requirements, making architectural recommendations, deploying or provisioning applications on AWS.
• He should be able to follow best practices for architectural design across different apps within an enterprise.

AWS Skills Required:

• He should have the basic idea of AWS core services, database apps, networking, deployment, management, etc.
• He should have a depth understanding of AWS Security features and best practices.
• He should be able to design and implement scalability and elasticity.
• He should have the idea of networking technologies.
• He should know about storage archival options.
• He should know about database replication methodologies and state management.
• He should know about fault-tolerant or self-healing techniques.
• He should know how to migrate existing apps to AWS.
• He should have the idea of network connectivity issues, deployment, and management.

General IT Skills Required:

• He should know about heavy distributed apps.
• He should know about relational databases, non-relational databases, eventual consistency, etc.
• He should know about multi-tenant architectures, content delivery networks, system performance tuning, etc.
• He should know about networking concepts, application security concepts, XML, JSON, SSH, etc.

Recertification

AWS professional-level certification should be recertified every two years to remain valid. AWS will send you a notification around six months before your certification credentials are set to expire.

How to become a certified AWS Solution architect?

Here is the learning path for becoming a certified AWS solution architect that you should follow.

A). Earn a Degree

A bachelor degree in IT or computer science is generally required to enter in this field. With this program, you generally acquire general IT skills as discussed earlier and confidence to start your career as an AWS expert. You may join an advanced degree program too if required. Mostly, a bachelor degree is enough to start your career in the AWS domain.

Success Tips:

Read: Roadmap to Success - A Complete Path Towards Your AWS SysOps Exam

• As an AWS Solution Architect has to work with different departments of an enterprise, he should be good at communication.
• He should work on ethics, intrapersonal skills, rhetoric, and mass media analysis further.

B). Get Trained & Certified

Certifications are mandatory as it showcases your expertize in a particular domain. To clear AWS certification, it is recommended joining the training program first to clear the certification exam in first attempt only. You can join online IT training programs if you don’t have enough time and money for personal training.

When training and certifications are added to your resume, it makes you a more demanding resource in the IT marketplace. Also, a certified solution architect usually gets higher salary packages as compared to non-certified solution architects.

C). Gain relevant experience and advance your career

The person should have 2-3 years of experience in administration before he is stepping to the AWS domain. Relevant experience is about gaining AWS skills here as discussed earlier to make your profile little stronger and valid. Hence, a combination of education and experience is acceptable to enter this specialized and advanced field.

Success Tip:

To become successful in this specialized field, solutions architects should know about AWS technology in advance. He should have working experience with database apps, AWS core services, architecture, etc.

Final Words:

This blog gives you a detailed idea of AWS solution architect profile and certification at two different levels – Associate and Professional. You can also learn the salary structure for this profile based on the regions, experiences, roles, etc.

Once you have enough details, this is the right time to get trained and certified in the AWS domain. For this purpose, there is nothing better option than JanBask Training to earn AWS solution architect certification. All the best for a successful career in AWS space with us!

Read: How to Build a Career in AWS?