So this article and the video is my congratulating myself for getting the coveted AWS Golden Jacket.

Seriously though, it is a really good feeling to finally have the physical jacket with me. Not that I can wear it during the coming spring and summer. To be honest though, not that I’ll be wearing this outside anyways. It’s so shiny that I’ll get pulled over for blinding other drivers.

The AWS Golden Jacket is awarded to recognise people who have passed all the active AWS certifications at the time. There seems to be a confusion in the community on what exactly the criteria are for this recognition. To be honest, all I know is that it’s on AWS to decide how the criteria is defined. As a general rule, it seems to include completing all the active AWS certifications.

I have heard of a few other occassions where people have received golden jackets through the AWS Ambassador programme or the AWS Heroes programme. However I’m not sure how those are awarded, and it seems almost all of those have been awarded at AWS re:Invent conventions or the associated AWS Ambassador Summits.

For me, I finished all of the exams as of mid-July this year (technically end of June as I recertified two more exams just because I didn’t want the qualifications for my Golden Jacket to expire soon after getting it). It took some time for the actual physical jacket to reach me, but AWS did hold a small event at the partner organisation I’m working at before that happened (because of various unrelated reasons).

In fact, I did all the certifications (except for the Machine Learning Specialty certification which was not expiring anytime soon) within 8 weeks. I’ll make a video and an article on my experience doing all those exams in a short period soon.

It was not a fun feeling to be on exam mode for 8 straight weeks, sometimes doing multiple exams within the same week, so getting something shiny like this as a reward helps a lot.

There are only a handful of Golden Jacket holders in New Zealand at the moment, but there are a few more in Australia as far as I know. Japan seems to be the record holder for the most number of Golden Jacket receivers.

I think I was the 9th person to receive the Golden Jacket here in NZ, and I with it I might be the first person in NZ to have both the AWS Golden Jacket and the CNCF Kubestronaut Blue Jacket (yeah, I did all those exams for the swag).

I work with a few other Golden Jacket holders, the first and a few within the top 5 to receive in NZ are my colleagues at work. Trust me, the environment helps, a lot!

I haven’t received the CNCF Kubestronaut Blue Jacket yet, it’s another logistic issue that CNCF is working on. I’m hopeful I’ll be able to share some photos of it here before the year ends.

If you’re interested in adding these to your wardrobe, keep a lookout on my youtube channel for dedicated videos on how I did the AWS and CNCF exams to qualify for the two programmes. I’m hoping to release those in the next few weeks.

Alright, I’m going to now carefully store this where it’ll never see the light of day except for an AWS Summit, an AWS Community Day, or some other function where I can comfortably wear it.