Lately, I have been seen lots of people asking how they could get started at their Azure Certification Journey, and despite the fact I hate to say like that but here it goes “it depends”!

It depends

It does not matter if you are a system administrator, developer or non-technical, you can get certified in Azure but deep dive in your expertise it depends on your expertise area or how would you like to drive your career.

Azure Levels

Nowadays, Azure Certifications are organized into the following levels: Fundamentals, Associate, Expert and Specialty

Fundamentals

As it the name suggests, this level is to demonstrate the candidates have foundational knowledge of the subject.

Currently, there are 3 certifications at this level

• Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)
• Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-900)
• Azure Data Fundamentals (DP-900)

Associate

At this level, the candidate has the familiarity and proficiency in the core concepts of the related topic

There are 8 certifications at this level

• Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
• Azure Security Engineer Associate (AZ-500)
• Azure Database Administrator Associate (DP-300)
• Azure Developer Associate (AZ-204)
• Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-100)
• Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP-200, DP-201)
• Azure Data Scientis Associate (DP-100)

Expert

As expected, you are now tagged as the Expert, and should demonstrate strong knowledge and skills at the related matters

There are 3 certifications at this level

• Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-303, AZ-304)
• Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400)

Specialty

It is expected in-depth experience and knowledge about the related subject.

There are 2 certifications at this level

• Azure IoT Developer Specialty (AZ-220)
• Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty (AZ-120)

You don’t have to follow the path from Fundamentals to Associate, from Associate to Expert, but, I strongly recommend to do so as it gives you the confidence and knowledge for the next level!

Where should I start?

This is a fact, knowing cloud became essential for your career and you should start somewhere, am I right?

If you are unsure how to get started in Azure Certification Journey, I’d recommend to start with AZ-900 exam, and here I speak from my own experience, it filled some gaps and helped to strengthen the foundation of my knowledge about cloud.

Looking for more information about AZ-900
Read more here

Although, if you are looking for Data or Artificial Intelligence, then you should consider their correspondent fundamentals certification: DP-900 and AI-900.

The branch

This is the point where I was referring when I said “it depends”, because here you will define which career path to pursue in your own Azure Certification Journey.

Certifications roadmap overview

As you can see in the image, there are lot of paths to follow, specially if you are pursuing the Solutions Architect.

In my opinion…

…everyone should start from Azure Fundamentals, and then deep dive accordingly to the career path that best suits for you

I think the image speaks for itself but in my humble opinion to get the Azure Security Engineer (AZ-500), you should at least have the Azure Administrator (AZ-104)

I had the chance to make a live presentantion covering about the Azure Certification Journey, and the video is available in Youtube, so I’ve added it here as well. Please take a time and check it out

And that’s it

I hope you liked, and I’ll see you on my next post

Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash