AWS Job Readiness

Entry-level resume snapshot

Skills: AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, IAM, VPC, CloudFront, Route 53, CloudWatch), Terraform / CDK, multi-AZ design, security groups, IAM roles + policies, AWS CLI, cost optimization. Projects: 'Deployed a 3-tier app on AWS (CloudFront → ALB → ECS → RDS); Terraform on GitHub; live at <url>; ~$35/mo.' 'Authored IAM least-privilege policies for a service; reduced default AdministratorAccess role to scoped per-service roles.' 'Set up CloudWatch dashboards + alarms for p99 latency and 5xx rate.' Certs: AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA) is the sweet spot.

Interview questions you'll face

'Design X on AWS.' (Architecture interview; lean on do-aws-passion structure.) 'What's the difference between security groups and NACLs?' 'When would you pick Lambda over EC2?' 'How do you give a Pod (or Lambda) access to S3 without storing AWS keys?' (IRSA / execution role.) 'Your RDS bill jumped 3x last month. Walk me through how you'd diagnose.' 'You discover an old AWS access key was committed to a public repo. What do you do in the next hour?'

Build a portfolio that gets interviews

Two of these inside 60 days.

1. 1

   Ship do-aws-passion with a live URL + Terraform repo.

2. 2

   Write a blog post: 'How I deployed X on AWS' (architecture + cost numbers + gotchas).

3. 3

   Pass SAA if budget allows.

4. 4

   Contribute to an OSS Terraform module.

5. 5

   Do a free Tutorials Dojo AWS challenge end-to-end.

Common mistakes only candidates with offers avoid

Listing 'AWS' without a deploy you can show. Click-ops only. Senior cloud engineers expect IaC. Skipping the cost discussion. Hiring managers care about cost; bring numbers. Treating SAA as the credential. Pair with portfolio; cert alone is weak. Forgetting the security story (IAM roles vs access keys; private subnets; OIDC federation).