𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴! 🎯

I just dived deep into the book “Solutions Architect Interview: Winning strategies and effective tactics for interview success” by Saurabh Shrivastava,  Neelanjali Srivastav, Dhiraj Thakur and Sanjeet Sahay and as someone who has led 200+ Solutions Architect interviews, I can say this is a genuinely valuable resource.

🎯 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀: 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗔 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄

This book is laser-focused on helping you ace Solutions Architect interviews—but it goes beyond typical interview prep by also explaining:

🪚 𝗜𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝘄 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗻𝘁? 𝗜𝗳 𝗻𝗼𝘁, 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗽?

The phrase “sharpening the saw” originates from a parable popularized by Stephen Covey in his 1989 book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where it represents the practice of self-renewal and personal improvement.

📖 Covey begins his chapter on this habit with a story of a man struggling to cut down a tree with a dull saw and refusing to stop and sharpen it because he’s “too busy sawing” — illustrating the need to regularly invest in growth to remain effective.

Stefan, why are you still with AWS after already being there for so long - currently 8 years?

I get this question constantly, in countless variations. My honest answer is always the same: it’s the people around me who hold a high bar while continuously creating opportunities for me to grow and learn.

Last week provided another perfect example of this. During one of our account team meetings my colleague Cameron brought a lightning talk on the topic of high-performing teams, which is another indication of how we constantly strive to improve the way we work. The outstanding point in the talk was about psychological safety being the most important characteristic of a high-performance team. Psychological safety is fundamental to creating a workplace that fosters inclusion, learning, and innovation.

Yesterday I took—after a long break of 5 years—an AWS Certification: The AWS Certified AI Practitioner[4]. I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts on the exam and help you determine if this would be a good learning objective for you.   To be honest, all of us should be active AI practitioners given the current state of AI—that’s a first indication of whether this could be something for you. That said, it’s not easy to stay on top of all the new AI tools that emerge literally every day. Obtaining and maintaining mastery seems to be a full-time job. That’s exactly where a curated and fixed learning scope provided by a certification exam can be helpful.   What I particularly appreciate about the AWS AI Practitioner Exam scope is its focus on creating a foundation of AI concepts and understanding their applicability to certain classes of use cases. Acquiring this knowledge helps tremendously in understanding how to apply AI tools to our own work and how to identify and shape possible use cases for AI.   Note that up to this point, this post hasn’t used the term “GenAI.” The certification scope is broader as it starts from the AI foundation but also covers many GenAI aspects. This approach helps you build a healthy foundation and design frugal and effective solutions—not every aspect of every use case needs GenAI. Not even in 2025 😉   The certification is an AWS certification, so it doesn’t stop at foundational knowledge but also requires you to establish a foundational understanding of the AWS service offering to help you design and implement use cases. Many hidden gems well beyond “just” Amazon Bedrock are covered in the scope. That’s another refreshing and quite helpful aspect. If I’ve sparked your interest, have a look at the exam landing page [1] and exam guide [3], which contain valuable information about the exam.   Most importantly, in my opinion, is the learning journey—unless you’re just after a shiny cert. Plenty of training content can be found at AWS Skill Builder [2], which also includes sample exams to verify your learning progress.