Explore the difference between AWS certifications and competencies, why competencies are a more rigorous, experience-based validation of a partner’s ability to deliver real-world cloud solutions, and why they matter when choosing the right AWS Partner.
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Brian is an AWS Community Hero, Alexa Champion, has ten US patents and a bunch of certifications, and ran the Boston AWS User Group for 5 years. He's also part of the New Voices mentorship program where Heros teach traditionally underrepresented engineers how to give presentations. He is a private pilot, a rescue scuba diver and got his Masters in Cognitive Psychology working with bottlenosed dolphins.
View Brian's articlesWhen evaluating an AWS Partner, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of badges, logos, and acronyms. Two of the most prominent forms of recognition—certifications and competencies—often get lumped together, but they represent very different kinds of accomplishments. Understanding the difference is critical for customers looking to reduce risk and maximize the value of their cloud investments.
AWS offers two powerful ways to validate expertise: certifications and competencies. While they may seem similar, each serves a distinct purpose. Here’s what sets them apart, and why each plays a critical role in validating cloud expertise and organizational credibility.
Certifications are granted after an individual passes a test that demonstrates proficiency in a particular area. There are several levels of certifications, including foundational, associate, specialty, and professional. The difficulty level of these tests vary widely: foundational and associate exams can often be passed with self-study and practice tests, while professional and specialty certifications typically require hands-on experience and a deep understanding of AWS services.
Competencies, on the other hand, are awarded to an AWS Partner after it has demonstrated significant experience with customers. In this case, only experience matters. A company must submit four case studies of actual customer production deployments related to the competency topic. They are also required to submit a comprehensive spreadsheet highlighting specific documentation that proves real-world use of the relevant technologies.
Attaining a competency involves a rigorous evaluation of customer engagements, systematically gathering and documenting evidence to demonstrate the depth, success, and impact of each engagement. The strict requirements reflect the fact that AWS competencies are relied upon by both AWS and companies looking to identify partners with validated expertise in targeted service or solution areas.
The reason for this rigor is that competencies are used by both Amazon and companies looking to find partners with real experience in a service or solution area. AWS has over 140,000 partners, whose experience level, by definition, varies considerably. Engagements with AWS Partners can represent a significant investment and may account for the majority of a company’s development efforts over multiple quarters. Given these stakes, it's important for companies to have the ability to view an objective metric of a partner's experience base.
AWS Certifications are industry-recognized credentials that validate an individual’s expertise in AWS. They demonstrate a person's ability to design, deploy, operate, and optimize cloud-based solutions using AWS tools and services. Each certification is earned by passing a rigorous, proctored exam that tests real-world cloud proficiency through complex, scenario-based multiple-choice questions.
The Certifications are structured across four levels: Foundational, Associate, Specialty, and Professional. The Foundational level, such as the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, is designed for beginners and validates a broad understanding of AWS Cloud concepts and services. These are often recommended for non-technical personnel who just need a high-level view of the cloud.
The Associate level targets individuals with some technical experience, focusing on specific roles like Solutions Architect, Developer, or SysOps Administrator, and tests the ability to implement and manage AWS solutions. The Solutions Architect Associate is usually seen as providing a great, high-level view of the breadth of services provided by AWS.
Specialty certifications validate in-depth expertise in niche areas, such as security, machine learning, or advanced networking, and are suitable for experts seeking to demonstrate specialized knowledge within AWS.
Finally, Professional level certifications, such as the Solutions Architect – Professional, are intended for experienced professionals and require advanced technical skills, as well as the ability to design and deploy complex AWS environments. Passing at least one Professional level certification is one of the requirements for AWS Ambassador status.
Let’s look at a fictional example of the kind of question you might see on an exam:
Question:
A company runs a batch processing job every night that processes large datasets and completes within 3 hours. The job can tolerate interruptions and does not require the results to be available immediately. The company wants to minimize compute costs for this workload. Which solution is the most cost-efficient?
Answers:
Correct Answer:
Explanation:
There is a world of difference between knowing that EC2 Spot Instances can be less expensive and really understanding the implications of interruptibility. To use an analogy from cooking: a beginner baker might carefully follow a bread recipe, measuring each ingredient and kneading the dough for the exact time specified. However, an experienced baker goes beyond the instructions — after mixing the ingredients, they assess the dough’s texture by touch, instinctively knowing when it’s smooth and elastic enough, even if it takes more or less time than the recipe suggests. This intuition, developed through practice, often leads to better bread with the ideal crumb and crust.
AWS Competencies are granted to a partner organization rather than to an individual. They show that a company has demonstrated deep and sustained experience in a use case such as Security, Data and Analytics, Generative AI etc. Unlike certifications, competencies don’t require an exam, they require an audit. Each competency has a detailed spreadsheet that lists various types of “evidence” that must be provided. Some requirements are at the organizational level, such as demonstrating that the partner has a standardized approach for assessing client needs during engagements.
Additional evidence is required from four separate customer engagements. This can include artifacts such as network diagrams that demonstrate the use of AWS security features like Web Application Firewalls (WAF), Security Groups, and Network ACLs (NACLs).
The purpose of these evidence requirements is to demonstrate that the partner not only understands the competency’s focus areas but has successfully applied that expertise across multiple customer engagements. Returning to our bread analogy, this would be similar to demonstrating that a bakery had produced dozens of loaves and sold them to multiple grocery stores. For the end consumer, this track record builds a higher level of confidence in the bakery's abilities.
The set of available competencies is quite extensive, as one would expect, given the prevalence of cloud-based solutions worldwide. Caylent, for example, has been granted the following competencies:
One often overlooked aspect of AWS competencies is the level of organizational maturity required to meet the evidence requirements. A mature AWS Partner maintains a comprehensive library of Statements of Work (SOWs), customer meeting records, change orders, and design documentation. Without this level of internal documentation discipline, it’s nearly impossible to satisfy the audit criteria. While not specifically mentioned, this requirement offers prospective clients implicit insight into a partner’s operational maturity and ability to deliver repeatable, well-documented outcomes.
The requirements for achieving an AWS Competency are highly detailed and rigorous. Partners must demonstrate deep technical expertise and robust operational processes across multiple dimensions. This includes providing evidence of structured design and implementation methodologies, showcasing proven customer success through impactful use cases, and illustrating how their solutions deliver measurable business value. Additionally, partners are expected to document their approaches to data management, model development, and quality control, often requiring detailed descriptions of their processes, methodologies, and technical capabilities.
The first step is to visit the AWS Partner Portal and download the documentation for the specific competency you’re pursuing. These materials outline the required use cases, which should guide your selection of four relevant customer engagements. For each engagement, you’ll need to create a case study-style document that explains what your organization delivered and how it aligns with the competency’s criteria.
Next, you download the spreadsheet that contains, generally, evidence requirements across four main categories. The total number of individual pieces of evidence ranges from a few dozen to over 60 items. Some requirements must be demonstrated across all four customer engagements, while others may only need to be shown in one.
For many (though not all) competencies, AWS provides a Calibration Guide. This resource offers examples of both acceptable and unacceptable responses for each required piece of evidence. These are invaluable in determining the level of detail needed to complete the evidence spreadsheet successfully.
Digging into a single one of the requirements reveals the extreme depth of experience that is required for each piece of evidence. For example, to demonstrate proficiency in managing and securing Amazon EC2 instances, a partner must document the use of multiple AWS services—such as AWS Config, AWS Inspector, AWS CloudTrail, and AWS Systems Manager—alongside practices outlined in the Well-Architected Framework.
Once you’ve completed your case studies and evidence spreadsheet, you submit them through the AWS Partner Portal for technical review. Once the submission passes this initial evaluation, it moves to the audit phase. The audit is typically conducted by a third-party company and can last between 2 and 4 hours. This involves a detailed review of each item in the spreadsheet to verify alignment with AWS’ requirements. After the audit is complete, the findings are compiled into a report and are sent back to AWS for final approval.
Gathering the necessary evidence and writing the case studies typically takes at least a month. The evaluation and audit process can add another month (if all goes smoothly). Competencies are not tests that you can study or cram for; they can only be achieved by having detailed and thorough experience with multiple production-level customers in a specific solution area.
SDPs are similar to AWS Competencies but focus on highly specific use cases. They require the same level of detail and experience that an AWS Competency does, just within a narrower, more targeted scope. These generally only require two customer examples. To show some examples, here are the SDPs that Caylent has been granted:
When leading critical cloud initiatives, it’s essential to recognize that certifications may open doors to new opportunities, but true competencies are what enable organizations to thrive once inside. Production-grade experience is non-negotiable for success in today’s complex cloud environments—demonstrating not just knowledge, but the ability to deliver real-world, scalable results. That’s why partnering with a competency-rich provider is far more than a preference; it’s a strategic investment that drives innovation, mitigates risk, and accelerates business outcomes. In short, while certifications signal potential, proven competencies are what make the difference between simply entering the cloud and genuinely mastering it.
With over 140,000 AWS Partners it’s important to have criteria to select who to engage with on your important projects. Caylent’s team has 700+ certifications held by individuals and has an active program for all team members to gain additional competencies. In addition, Caylent is nearly alone in holding 15 Competencies and 11 Service Delivery Programs. These numbers demonstrate the breadth and depth of Caylent’s experience base. In addition, Caylent was a Launch Partner for the GenAI competency showing the high level of trust AWS itself has with Caylent.
These are some of the reasons that in 2024 Caylent won three AWS Partner of the Year awards for Migration Consulting Partner of the Year, Generative AI (GenAI) Industry Solution Partner of the Year, and Industry Partner of the Year - Financial Services.
Ready to take your cloud strategy to the next level? Whether you’re looking to modernize your applications, adopt GenAI, or build resilient infrastructures, Caylent’s deep expertise with AWS can help you move forward with confidence. With 15 AWS Competencies, 11 Service Delivery Programs, and a focus on delivering real outcomes, we’re here to help you turn your ideas into impact. Contact us today to get started.
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