Passed at 847. Six weeks, roughly forty hours, most of it in the evenings.
The exam itself is less about recall than about ranking. Nearly every question has two defensible answers and asks which is most cost-effective, or most operationally efficient. Learning that phrasing is worth more than another pass through the storage classes.
Was it worth it
For the knowledge, partly — the networking chapter genuinely changed how I lay out a VPC, and I now reach for gateway endpoints by reflex. The rest confirmed things I already did.
For the market, yes. Two agencies have a hard filter on it for cloud-adjacent contracts, and passing removed a conversation I was tired of having.
Would I do the Professional? Not this year. The marginal signal is small and the time is better spent shipping.
Earlier notes are in the series index.