Which AWS certification is suitable for me?

Many people have asked me which AWS certification should they do that can help in their career in near future.
AWS provides below certifications
Beginner
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Associate level
AWS Certified Developer – Associate
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Professional level
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
Specialty Certifications
AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty
AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty
Now coming to the point which AWS certification is best for you.
If you are a fresher you should go for either AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or  AWS Certified Developer – Associate . These are easiest of all AWS exams and will give you a good base.
If you have less than 5 to 6 years of experience in IT industry and you are from development background in that case you should go for AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification.
Similarly, if you have less than 5 to 6 years of experience in IT industry and you are from system admin background you should go for AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate certification.
If you have 8 to 9+ years of experience in IT industry you can go for AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification. Reason for more experience in Architect certification is that generally you can’t send a 2-3 years experience person in front of the client as an Architect. Because client may not accept such a young person to be given responsibility of designing their environment. However, exceptions are always there but this is generally the trend we have seen.
Also, if you are from pre-sales and sales background you can go for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and later to Architect exam.
If you are from Database Admin background then going for AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty certification will be a natural progression and a big plus in your resume.
If you are from networking background then AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty certification will be a good choice and natural progression for you.
Once you have gained approximately 2 years of experience with AWS you can go for professional certifications. Dev and SysOps guys can go for AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional and Architects can naturally move to AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional.
Learning about all of the above certification will be a huge advantage but to start with above approach should be a good beginning.
We have recently seen a trend where jobs are being posted only for Redshift Architect or IAM Architect so things may change in future when people will look for specialists in only one or two AWS services.
If you want to have a quick snapshot of AWS services you can refer to our free AWS Crash Course.
Do let me know what you think about this and if you have any query or suggestions ask in comments section.