Tag: Certifications

Posts about certifications.

AWS DevOps Engineer Professional Exam Prep With Pepe Silvia

Post author By Damien Jones
Post date May 30, 2026

In this post, I share my experience passing the AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional exam, including study strategy, mock exams, time management and exam-day tactics.

Introduction

Back in March 2022, I wrote about passing the AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification. More recently, in May 2026, I took the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional – my first AWS Professional certification.

I don’t usually write about exam prep — the strategies are personal, the technology moves fast, and there’s no shortage of good advice already out there. But I don’t see much written about the gap between the Associate and Professional certifications, so I thought I’d share my experience in this post.

First, I’ll examine some of those differences in detail. Then I’ll outline my study approach. Finally, I’ll share some survival tactics I used during the exam. And along the way, you’ll find out why one of my Steamhaus colleagues compared one of my strategies to the Pepe Silvia scene from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

pepesilvia — “Can we talk about the DevOps Pro please, Mac? I’ve been dying to talk about the DevOps Pro with you all day, okay?”

Professional vs Associate

This section explores some of the key differences between the AWS Associate and Professional certifications.

Before diving in, a quick note. Both AWS and Tutorials Dojo (which I’ll discuss later) offer excellent practice resources. While AWS still hosts older sample question PDFs (many of which haven’t been updated since 2022), the best place for their official materials is now the free tier of the AWS Skill Builder platform.

Scenario Length

The most obvious difference between the AWS Associate and Professional questions is length.

Professional exam questions are often much longer, sometimes two to three times as long as the Associate ones. And not all provided information is relevant. A major part of these exams is your ability to filter out noise and identify which constraints matter.

As evidence, look at this zoomed-out screenshot of Question 7 from the AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional sample PDF. I mean, LOOK AT IT.

It’s the entire page long! And, as I’ll discuss later, there’s not much time to read questions like these either. As for why many Professional questions are longer…

Knowledge vs Judgment

Associate questions generally check your understanding of what a service does. Professional questions assume you already know the technical terms and instead test your judgment over what actions to take.

To explore this, the Solutions Architect track offers the nearest like-for-like comparison. Let’s contrast Question 4 from the Solutions Architect – Associate sample exam questions:

With Question 3 from the Solutions Architect – Professional sample exam questions:

While the questions are thematically similar, they differ significantly in areas including:

Structure: The Associate question has a single correct answer. The Professional question requires two answers, each addressing a different layer of the architecture. This requires an understanding of how the services interact.

Scope: The Associate question focuses on a single service to solve a straightforward problem. The Professional question looks at the entire request pipeline: S3 serving the frontend, API Gateway handling the POST request and Lambda processing in the background. You must debug the whole system, not just choose the right service.

Detail: The Associate question provides only essential information. The Professional question includes additional elements that provide further context. It mentions that the team successfully tested each API method in the AWS console, which rules out server-side failures. Understanding this distinction is crucial for effective debugging.

Domain Structure

Associate exams focus on specific technical domains. Depending on the certification, these domains may include architectural best practices, development tasks or operational duties. Each domain is separate, making it easier to study and concentrate on one topic at a time.

Professional exams do not have clear boundaries. They require you to integrate knowledge from multiple domains at the same time, revealing something significant about what is actually being tested.

To see this in action, let’s look at the Solutions Architect track. The current version of the Solution Architect – Associate exam guide focuses on four domains:

Design Secure Architectures
Design Resilient Architectures
Design High-Performing Architectures
Design Cost-Optimised Architectures

These domains focus on the technical qualities of a workload. They closely align with the AWS Well-Architected Framework, and test the ability to identify the right services, apply best practices and recognise common design mistakes.

Conversely, the Solutions Architect – Professional exam guide takes a very different approach:

Design Solutions for Organisational Complexity
Design for New Solutions
Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions
Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernisation

These domains are action-oriented and contextual, each specifying an action to perform rather than a quality to evaluate. They are open-ended and organisationally aware, rarely having a single correct answer.

Revision Strategy

This section explores my ways of preparing for the AWS DevOps Engineer Professional certification, including courses, mock exams and mental models.

Career Experience & Courses

2026 marks my tenth year working in technology, with the most recent two as an AWS Consultant at Steamhaus. While my day-to-day role naturally exposes me to several aspects of the DevOps Professional blueprint, it doesn’t cover all of them. That is where targeted courses come in.

I’m a longtime fan of Stephane Maarek, and had already bought his AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional Udemy course in a previous sale. The course covers a lot, but I felt less confident after finishing it than after his Associate courses. His DevOps course combines new lectures with material from his Associate courses. As a result, I found that some modules reinforced concepts I had already learned from the Associate-level material instead of providing the deeper context I wanted.

To fill the gaps, I used one of my Community Builder benefits – a free QA subscription. Danny Jessee‘s DOP-C02 preparation course covered similar topics to Maarek’s but delivered several lectures with the greater technical depth that I was seeking. The hands-on labs were also a massive help in demystifying some of the services and features I don’t often use.

With those gaps filled, it was time to start testing.

Mock Exams

Mock exams are likely the most valuable part of my study process. Since earning my first cloud certification in 2019, I have relied on the Maarek course and the associated Tutorials Dojo exams for each AWS certification.

Tutorials Dojo (TD) offers practice exams, cheat sheets and labs for several cloud certifications, including AWS, Azure and GCP. Each TD question bank has several modes, which I usually tackle in this order:

Section-Based: This mode focuses on specific topics and domains, giving the correct answer and a detailed explanation immediately after each question. This is great at flagging things I’ve misremembered, misunderstood or simply never touched, letting me refine my knowledge without burning through the question bank.

Review: This mode is more open-ended, posing questions from multiple domains. It isn’t timed and gives answers and explanations as before. I use this mode to build the mental stamina needed to answer large blocks of questions in bulk.

Timed: This mode mimics the exam. Questions are given under timed conditions, with a full report only upon completion. While some questions in the bank will now be familiar, this approach teaches me the strategies and timings I need for the actual exam.

After each session, I review the answers and identify topics and domains that are unfamiliar or problematic. What I do next with this knowledge has changed over the years…

Connecting The Dots

There’s no single correct way to use the results of a mock exam. Personally, I like to look for patterns in the areas where I’m struggling and connect them to topics I already understand.

For example, I was getting some ELB routing questions wrong, so I used my existing Route53 routing knowledge to fill in some gaps. I also had issues with some Elastic Beanstalk questions because I’m not a big user of the service, so I stepped away from the practice exams entirely to do a deep dive into the documentation and FAQs.

My goal isn’t to memorise answers. It’s to understand why an answer is correct well enough to recognise the same pattern in other questions. This eventually evolved into building mental models: connecting unfamiliar concepts to existing knowledge rather than collecting isolated facts. It’s an approach influenced by books like Make It Stick and How to Take Smart Notes, both of which argue that writing is a tool for understanding rather than simply recording information.

I like to write things down because it forces me to use my own words and highlights gaps in my understanding. It also encourages selectivity – since space is limited, every word must earn its place.

I’ve used several methods for this over the years, including:

Flashcard apps like Anki.
Ring binders with A4 notes and diagrams.
Blank A3 sheets as wall posters.

And now…

Pepe’s Whiteboard

Which brings us to my latest iteration and the reason for this post’s title – a whiteboard, several index cards and loads of fridge magnets:

While I could write directly on the whiteboard, the paper and magnets let me move, group, replace and reorganise cards without forcing a complete rewrite of the board.

This combines several benefits from the other systems:

Anki’s ease of note creation, tagging and movement.
The binder’s ease of writing notes on my own terms and in my own words.
The poster’s visibility and its ability to passively reinforce study material.

It also proved useful in the final days before the exam. Any cards that were still causing problems could be moved from the main board onto smaller, portable boards for targeted revision:

This still has limitations, of course. It’s not portable as a complete knowledge source. The whiteboard also has limited space – in fact, I ultimately had to branch out to a nearby plastic box for overflow!

Despite the space constraints, I’m definitely a fan of this whiteboard approach and will use it for future exams. I might augment it with digital second brain tools like Obsidian or Google’s NotebookLM to inform what deserves a card, and I’ll be looking into this in the coming months.

Survival Tactics

This section examines some of my survival tactics for the AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional certification exam by optimising time, embracing personal kindness and checking my understanding.

The Maths is a Lie

The Professional exams have 75 questions with 180 minutes to answer them. This averages out at 2 minutes 24 seconds per question. In contrast, the Associate exams consist of 65 questions that must be answered in 130 minutes, averaging 2 minutes per question.

You may conclude from this that the Professional exam gives you a bit more breathing room. And you would be wrong.

I previously mentioned that the Professional questions are longer and more complex compared to the Associate questions. These factors quickly eat those ‘extra’ 24 seconds. Many candidates have noted anecdotally that the timing of the Professional exams is very tight and, having now taken one, I completely agree!

My preferred strategy is to go through the questions in order and get a quick gut feel for confidence. If the question involves services I frequently use, or if the answer is well established from my studies then I’ll answer it. If not, I flag it and move on. I’ll try to make this decision within 30 seconds.

My initial goal is to see all 75 questions with as close to 90 minutes remaining as possible. This way, when I reach the end of the questions, I know how many are unanswered and how long I have left to answer them. I can then revisit these questions using a more methodical approach, potentially drawing on other questions I have already answered.

However, this required a change to the way I recorded my progress…

Kindness Through Panic

Since my earliest certifications, I’ve used a Gut Feel system using my own notepad during mocks and the test centre’s whiteboards during exams. I create an empty table with three confidence ratings:

100: I’m 100% sure of the answer.
5050: I’ve narrowed it down to two answers.
?: I have no idea.

As I move through the questions, each question number is recorded in one of these rows.

However, there’s nothing here for situations where I’ve speed-read the question and chosen not to answer it. The closest option was ‘?‘, but that means ‘I don’t know the answer’, whereas I wanted ‘I haven’t properly read the question‘.

Enter my latest addition: PANIC.

Panic is somewhat hard to articulate, so I’ll describe how I use it. A question will get Panic if my initial thoughts are along the lines of:

I’m currently panicking (I mean yeah – Ed).
I don’t want to try this question yet (for whatever reason).
I don’t feel ready to try this question yet (for whatever reason).

Or any other reason – this list isn’t exhaustive.

Professional exams are expensive, time-consuming and complex. It is completely reasonable to get adrenaline and anxiety in this situation. Panic lets me be kind to myself and build some forward momentum. I can then do second, third and fourth passes to attack the Panic queue.

It’s similar to an SQS queue visibility timeout. When a Panic question is pulled from the queue, it temporarily disappears. While it’s invisible, I can process other messages without it blocking my progress. Once I’ve completed my first pass, the timeout expires, the message reappears and I can handle it with fresher eyes and more context from the questions I’ve already answered.

At the end of an exam, I end up with something like this:

Combining this physical ledger with the exam software’s flagging feature lets me track unanswered questions and the reasons for skipping them. This gives me more mental bandwidth to actually answer the questions.

Hallucinations Aren’t Limited to AI

One of the biggest mistakes I repeatedly made during my mock exams was adding details that weren’t in the text. Who says AI is the only thing that can hallucinate?

I’ll illustrate what I mean with a paraphrased mock exam question:

A company has confidential files in an Amazon S3 bucket. Actions on objects need to be monitored, such as PUT, GET, and DELETE. The goal is to easily search for and review these actions for auditing purposes.

Four answers were provided. I narrowed it down to two options, one of which seemed wrong because it would trigger unnecessary Lambda executions.

But this answer was correct. And the reason my chosen answer would never have worked? It assumed a CloudTrail trail was already enabled on the bucket. The Lambda answer didn’t make that assumption, explicitly enabling the trail as a step. I’d hallucinated a prerequisite into existence because it’s what I’d have done instinctively in a real environment. Oops! This wasn’t the only time I caught myself out like that either.

So yes. Read the question. Then READ THE QUESTION. And then choose the answer that fits the requirements, not the one that needs some bending and stretching. And not the one that you’ve hallucinated into correctness.

Summary

Going into the AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional exam, I wasn’t sure what to expect. A harder version of the Associate exam? A different beast entirely?

As it turned out, both are true. The transition from Associate to Professional reminds me of the progress I’ve experienced in my own career. In my earlier roles, I primarily solved clearly defined problems with straightforward solutions. In my current consulting role, I concentrate on understanding context, navigating ambiguity, evaluating trade-offs and making decisions when no clear right answer exists.

While I did find the exam brutal, it does exactly what it sets out to do. I must often make important architectural and procedural decisions under time pressure and with appropriate justification, and the DevOps Pro held up a mirror to that perfectly. Would I do another? Absolutely. Although next time I might need a second whiteboard.

Like this post? Click the button below for links to contact, socials, projects and sessions:

Thanks for reading ~~^~~

Tags Amazon Web Services, Certifications, YearCompass Goals

YearCompass 2025-2026

Post author By Damien Jones
Post date January 9, 2026

In this post, I use the free YearCompass booklet to reflect on 2025 and to plan some personal goals for 2026.

Introduction

It’s time for the customary retrospective post!

Each year, I use YearCompass to reflect on the past year’s events and consider what lies ahead. This post will follow the same structure: I’ll provide a brief overview of YearCompass, reflect on how 2025 went and then look forward to 2026.

Well, mostly the same structure. My 2026 goals don’t use User Stories anymore, as I’ve replaced them with Identity Statements. Let me explain why…

About Identity Statements

In previous years, I’ve used User Stories for YearCompass goals. These are structured, task-oriented and outcome-focused.

They are effective in the right context, but I no longer think they’re the right fit. They’re rigid, assume a clear definition of success and usually frame things in terms of completion. That doesn’t align well with personal growth, which often exists in shades of grey.

So I’ll now be using Identity Statements instead. As discussed in James Clear‘s 2018 book Atomic Habits, Identity Statements are internal character affirmations that focus on the type of person one wishes to become, rather than on the specific tasks one wants to complete. I’m using them because:

They prioritise character development over achieving specific outcomes.
They offer resilience and adaptability. Unlike rigid goals that feel “failed” when criteria aren’t met, an Identity Statement represents a continuous path that can be strengthened through every small action.
They create lasting change by first transforming self-image. This transformation lets the necessary habits and actions naturally emerge from that changed identity.

An example of an Identity Statement is:

I am a disciplined and curious learner who explores new ideas daily, maintains a consistent reading habit, and shares insights to help others grow.

This interview with James Clear further explains the concept of Identity Statements:

About YearCompass

From the YearCompass site:

YearCompass is a free booklet that helps you reflect on the year and plan the next one. With a set of carefully selected questions and exercises, YearCompass helps you uncover your own patterns and design the ideal year for yourself.

YearCompass provides a free alternative to New Year’s resolutions. The booklet is available as A4 and A5 PDFs in multiple languages and can be completed either digitally or by hand.

YearCompass PDFs include two sections: reflecting on the past year and planning for the upcoming year. Each section features prompts designed to help users assess their priorities and prepare for the future.

There are no strict guidelines for completing YearCompass. Some people take breaks between sections, while others prefer to finish it in one sitting. Personally, I prefer to focus on specific sections rather than go through the entire document, since I usually have what I need by a certain point.

2025 Goals

In this section, I reflect on my YearCompass 2025 goals and evaluate my progress with them.

Community Investment

As an active tech community member, I want to support and grow these communities through content, involvement and participation so that both the communities and I thrive.

How It Went

Let’s start this section by talking about Step On It! – a session I wrote after being invited to speak at DTX Manchester‘s event at Manchester Central in April. This was the beginning of a wild ride, yielding six speaking opportunities both domestically in Manchester, Leeds and London, and internationally in Dublin and Utrecht. It still blows my mind that this little shark gets to do any of this!

Also, I was accepted into the AWS Community Builder program in March. People apply to the program for various reasons, and my personal reasons were:

Early access to sessions on new products and services before official launch.
Opportunities to share ideas and challenges with other builders.
The promotional credits, which have been very handy!

Community Builders must reapply annually, and I’m hopeful for a second year!

Elsewhere, I said yes to two opportunities that pushed me out of my comfort zone: appearing on Karl & Jon‘s LogiCast podcast and returning to Ada for an IaC lecture. I took both on deliberately because I want to practise being more spontaneous. There is still work to do here, but I am very much up for more of the same in 2026.

There’s also something else to discuss that relates to both this and another of my 2025 goals, but we’ll get to that…

Reflections

Overall, this goal went very well. I’ve decided Community Investment isn’t a goal I’m carrying forward into 2026 for two reasons.

First, I feel that setting the same goal again would be a cop-out, since YearCompass is about progress and moving forward. Additionally, I’ve come to realise that I will continue my community involvement regardless of whether it’s on a goal list. It has become a natural part of how I operate, rather than something I need to commit to explicitly.

So instead of formalising it again, I want to focus on something new that sits alongside it.

Gestalt Cycles

As an individual with multiple workstreams, I want to apply Gestalt cycles to recognize when a task is complete and take intentional breaks, so that I can improve my wellbeing and maintain consistent energy and focus.

How It Went

I set this goal after feeling burned out at the end of 2024. My sleep was off, my energy was low, and while I had plenty of ideas I was doing too much without taking breaks.

Gestalt appealed because it focuses on completing tasks and taking breaks, rather than always being in motion. I wanted to move away from constantly being always-on; instead, I wanted to create time for non-work activities without feeling like I have to earn this time through exhaustion.

In early 2025, I went through a light version of To-Do List Bankruptcy. I reviewed my long-running tasks to determine whether they still held value or if they were just taking up space. Several items were removed or deprioritised. More importantly, I resisted the urge to replace them right away. And while leaving my task list shorter initially felt uncomfortable, that open space was exactly what I had been missing.

This change brought some clear benefits. I found more time for reading – not only by reading more books but also by letting some go. Completing a book or deciding not to finish one became a signal that a cycle was complete, rather than something to optimise continuously. This approach created space for the books I actually wanted to read, including two that I reviewed.

I also used the time to take better care of myself. I joined the Steamhaus Vitality scheme in March and regularly used the provided fitness and wellbeing apps, reaching Vitality’s Platinum status in November.

Additionally, I started running again and ended the year with 350 miles, my furthest since 2021. Progress has been slow, but consistent. Running, in particular, gave me a clear sense of a complete cycle: start, effort, finish, recover – then rest before the next run.

Reflections

In summary, this was a partial success. My physical and mental health have both improved, and I am now much more aware of my energy levels and overall wellbeing than I was a year ago.

However, one part of the Gestalt cycle still needs work – withdrawal. In theory, withdrawal should lead to rest and renewal. In practice, I can recognise when something is finished, but I don’t yet have a clear sense of what proper rest looks like for me.

It’s not a failure of the idea – it’s a signal that further insight is needed. There’s still work to do in understanding how I recover, not just how I stop. This directly connects to one of my goals for 2026.

Be The Change

As a hard working dog dad, I want to confidently embrace and act on my ideas and opinions so that I can make meaningful contributions and changes to myself, my peers and clients and the wider tech community.

Ah – the LinkedIn goal. It was well-intentioned (and loosely based on something already in motion at the time), but the wording isn’t my style and isn’t something I’ll carry forward.

Right. In my YearCompass 2024-2025 post I said:

…I’ll have some exciting news to share soon about something I’m part of!

Well, I launched a user group! Let’s talk about AWS User Group Lancashire.

How It Went

Beginnings

In September 2024 I first met Cat Mawdsley and Dan Knowles at Northern Reach. Northern Reach delivers technology and innovation-driven business initiatives for public and private-sector partners in Northern England.

I hadn’t even planned to discuss the prospect of a user group. I mentioned it in passing and Cat snatched my hand off! We exchanged details and agreed to stay in touch. Looking back, I don’t think either of us knew what we’d just gotten ourselves into.

Cat and I bring complementary strengths: she excels at community coordination and enablement, while I bring technical knowledge and connections with community speakers and AWS contacts. We also both have a personal motivation to elevate the region’s profile!

Why Lancashire?

There are several reasons:

Personal Connection: I was born and raised in Lancashire, and I’ve always felt a strong connection to the region. It’s home – family, history and a lot of my story starts here.
Closing the Distance: Although there are various tech community events in Manchester, Merseyside and Yorkshire – and some in Lancashire – there wasn’t much representation from the major cloud platforms like AWS locally. Often, ‘local’ still meant having to travel. I wanted to create a truly local event to support Lancashire’s growing tech scene.
Building a Hub: I wanted to create a space where professionals, students and enthusiasts could come together – somewhere to share ideas, learn and meet others.
Growth: I wanted to help put Lancashire more firmly on the UK map for talent, investment and the wider tech community.

Outcomes

The first AWS UG Lancashire event took place in February 2025 as part of the AWS re:Invent recap UKIE tour.

Burnley College hosted us at their BCUC (Burnley College’s University Courses) centre. As a former BC student, this was a proud personal moment. It also meant I got to introduce Matheus Guimaraes to my hometown, during which he met with local authorities and got a tour of the town and college.

That evening, we hosted around forty people – developers, local professionals and a handful of familiar faces from the wider AWS community, all in the same room for the first time.

We had further events at Chorley in May with Chris Dobson and Matt Houghton, and at Leyland in November with Kate Gowron and Paul Ross.

Reflections

Overall, this was both a big personal win and a wake-up call. I acted on an idea, committed to it publicly and helped create something valuable for Lancashire. Seeing it all come together made the effort incredibly worthwhile.

It also highlighted a few things that are easy to underestimate from the outside.

Leadership Is Scary

Planting a flag and summoning people to it is a vulnerable move. Before the first event, there was a real possibility that nobody would show up – or that they would and regret it. Or that something major would go wrong. Those feelings don’t go away with experience. They just become more familiar and manageable. And I am very much still learning the UG Leader ropes!

The Leyland event illustrated this well. The venue’s large TV, kindly provided by the local council, wasn’t actually attached to the wall! So I ended up balancing a 27-inch monitor on a box of AWS t-shirts and a stack of Costco waters:

Nobody in the room seemed to mind, and the event carried on regardless. That experience highlighted something very true about leading community events: things go wrong in unexpected ways, and the job is to stay calm and keep moving.

Leading is still scary. It continues to be scary. And it continues to be worth doing.

Scheduling Is Hard

Scheduling is hard, and scheduling user groups is no exception! Finding dates that worked for speakers, venues, organisers and attendees – all with competing priorities – is a constant challenge. A lot must come together for a community event, and fortunately I have some great people supporting me!

In 2025 there were three UG Lancashire events, and my goal for 2026 is to hold four. As my network of supporters, speakers, and attendees grows, I want to implement processes to manage this expansion and streamline logistics so my ambitions can flourish.

The Demand Is There

One thing became very clear throughout the year: there is real demand for local events in Lancashire. People consistently said how valuable it was to have something nearby instead of having to travel.

This interest extends beyond just AWS. Topics such as serverless computing, modernisation and AI are relevant across multiple vendors and job roles, and there is a clear desire for a local space to discuss them.

That’s not a small thing. It signifies that the work is meaningful and should be done properly. This also connects to the reasons I initially started the group. The focus for 2026 isn’t growth for growth’s sake – it’s about making the group reliable enough to justify the journey, even if it’s just a short one.

Onwards

There’s more to do. Maintaining momentum, ensuring the group stays valuable and balancing it with everything else in my life.

For 2026, the focus is consistency: better scheduling, stronger speaker and promotion pipelines and fewer last-minute scrambles. Not more for the sake of it, but for something reliable, sustainable and worth showing up for.

2026 Goals

In this section, I will use YearCompass to determine my goals for 2026. For each goal, I’ll write an Identity Statement and explain my reasoning.

Cultivate a Maker Mindset

I am an intentional maker – someone who explores the physical and mental world through repair, construction and play. I treat the act of doing as essential for achieving clarity and focus.

Background

2025 was a busy year. Alongside the various work, community and personal projects I’ve already discussed, there were also some smaller activities. While these didn’t receive much attention, they ultimately proved to be very valuable for my mental health.

Two in particular stand out:

Path Maintenance: The back garden paths have gaps where grass grows through, creating uneven and potentially hazardous areas. Weeding is only a temporary fix as the grass quickly regrows, and using weed killer is unsafe for pets and can contaminate the garden.

So, over the summer, I learned how to mix cement, bought the necessary materials and spent some time on part of the path, a section of which is shown below. It’s been grass-free and much safer ever since!

Electronics Repair: Our hedge trimmer stopped working due to a damaged cable. A new one would cost £100+, and without it the garden was getting unruly.

So I learned to use wire strippers, safely splice cables and properly apply heat-shrink tubing. After that, I set to work fixing the cable. While the result isn’t the best-looking, it’s electrically safe and I can use the trimmer now!

So yes – I’ve turned into a tinkerer! And I want to explore this.

Plan

In 2026, I want to intentionally set aside more time for tinkering, building and fixing things. It turns out I enjoy it, both for satisfying my curiosity and as a respite from my technology-focused main workload.

I’ve already felt the benefits. Fixing things around the house, repairing various breakages and even just experimenting – it all created natural breaks between larger pieces of work. It supported exactly what I was aiming for with my previous Gestalt and Cult Of Done goals: a sense of definite completion, followed by a full pause.

So in 2026 I’m going to carve out time and focus for more of it! Some of this time will be spent on larger, varied projects like training roses and fixing iPods. Others will be smaller acts of ‘adult play’, such as soldering electronic kits or building Lego models.

I’m not planning to document all of it. Keeping it informal and unstructured is part of the point. But I’ll share the occasional snapshot on the shark socials, and maybe even dust off that YouTube channel…

Meaningful Milestones

I am someone who pursues goals with intention. Before committing to something significant, I ask what it will mean when it’s done – not just whether it can be done. The work that stays with me is never the work I finished fastest.

Background

As discussed, 2025 was a big year.

Eighteen months into Steamhaus, the role continues to grow both technically and interpersonally. Elsewhere, speaking at conferences and on podcasts became more regular, as did leading the user group. Alongside that, multiple blog posts, three exams, six talks across three countries and finally making a dent in the reading pile.

BooksReadSmall — Some of 2025’s varied reading list

That’s a lot. But looking back with YearCompass, not all of it felt meaningful.

I mentioned in the Gestalt section that I’d already trimmed my to-do list going into 2025. Even so, some surviving goals still felt like going through the motions. The certs didn’t feel like they deserved celebration. Some of the books got speed-read. Tasks were getting done, but…so what?

What those goals had in common was a simple end state: done. There was no answer to the question of what actually changes when they’re finished. Compare that to repairing the hedge trimmer or cementing the garden path. Those stuck out. Not because they were hard, but because the result mattered afterwards. The garden looked better. Equipment returned to use.

The certs and books weren’t wasted time. Certifications validate current knowledge and expose gaps worth filling, and the books were definitely worthwhile. But there’s only one of me and only so many hours in the day. My overloaded task list quietly crowded out personal hobbies, family time and recreation. The ratio was off.

Plan

The lesson going into 2026 is simple: where possible, pursue tasks and milestones that mean something. This won’t apply to everything – quick tasks are fast by nature, and some things just need doing. But for anything that needs sustained effort, having a clear answer to why this matters will be vital.

The AWS DevOps Professional certification is a good example. The practical reason is simple – my SysOps Associate expires in October and the Pro cert will also renew that one. But it’s also the first Professional-tier AWS certification I have attempted. Earning this will do what the Associate certifications haven’t: eliminate the background noise of imposter syndrome with something concrete and tangible. Therein lies the meaningful aspect for me – it’ll improve my self-image.

So keep an eye on my Credly badges this year!

And speaking of improved self-image…

Metacognition

I am an architect of my own thinking. I pay attention to how I think, not just what I think, so that I can respond with clarity rather than react on instinct.

Background

Last year’s Gestalt goal was about recognising the rhythm between effort and rest. And while it changed how I think about energy, it also raised another question: If the pattern of thinking matters, what about the quality of the thinking itself?

That question led me back to The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters – a book I’d owned for years but never properly finished. And when I finally did, the themes around self-regulation, emotional response, and the gap between instinct and intention stuck with me. This started me on a new journey that eventually led to metacognition.

Metacognition is usually defined as an awareness of one’s own thinking processes – often described as “thinking about thinking.” Psychologist John H. Flavell introduced the term in the 1970s, and it is commonly broken down into three stages: planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Establish a goal and select suitable tools, monitor their effectiveness and evaluate the outcomes.

This approach treats the mind like a system, focusing on visibility, feedback loops and continuous improvement. Something I can easily relate to as a technologist!

Plan

There are two areas of my life where I feel metacognition could help:

Learning Metacognition

Metacognition is a valuable tool in education that helps learners understand their thinking processes and take control of their learning. By reflecting on their performance and learning from successes and failures, students can adjust their strategies and problem-solving methods rather than just trying harder.

This aligns well with my responsibilities at Steamhaus, where I must regularly assess my knowledge and address any gaps in relation to client projects. The rapidly changing technology landscape can feel overwhelming, and by enhancing my metacognitive skills, I can better identify what to learn and recognise when I have a sufficient understanding of a given topic.

This mindset influences not only my work but also my daily life. Running a household, tending a garden and exploring new interests often need me to learn new things, adjust as needed and evaluate what actually works. By using a more thoughtful metacognitive approach in these areas, I can better prepare for unexpected challenges in the future.

Psychological Metacognition

Metacognition in psychology lets individuals recognise their thought patterns, monitor their emotional responses and understand the root causes of their reactions. This understanding fosters the creation of healthier coping strategies and encourages more adaptive behaviours.

I’ve spoken previously about my struggles with anxiety, insecurity and patterns of overthinking. My hope is that metacognition will help me identify emotional triggers, challenge automatic assumptions and respond more intentionally in the moment.

Additionally, I want to investigate whether this approach can enhance my emotional regulation, decision-making under stress, and communication and boundary-setting with others.

Summary

In this post, I used the free YearCompass booklet to reflect on 2025 and to plan some personal goals for 2026.

The process has highlighted several important lessons—especially regarding what feels meaningful to me, how I manage my energy, and how I approach personal growth. As a result, I’m trying something different this year: instead of focusing on what I want to achieve, I am concentrating more on the kind of person I want to become.

I’m curious to see where this leads. I will share updates here and on my social media, as well as in projects and sessions. You can find these by clicking the button below.

Thanks for reading ~~^~~

Tags Amazon Web Services, Certifications, Speaking, YearCompass, YearCompass Goals

YearCompass 2024-2025

Post author By Damien Jones
Post date January 9, 2025

In this post, I use the free YearCompass booklet to reflect on 2024 and to plan some professional goals for 2025.

Introduction

It’s time for the customary retrospective post! Previously, I’ve written these in December. From now on, I’ll post them on amazonwebshark’s birthday in January because:

It gives me more time to consider my goals.
If I’m going to write about a year, it makes more sense to write after the year is over.
In previous years, I’ve felt personal pressure to produce both a December YearCompass post and a January birthday post. My YearCompass post can cover both of these instead.

Firstly, I’ll examine YearCompass itself. Next, I’ll discuss how 2024 went. Finally, I’ll examine my 2025 YearCompass goals.

About YearCompass

From the YearCompass site:

YearCompass is a free booklet that helps you reflect on the year and plan the next one. With a set of carefully selected questions and exercises, YearCompass helps you uncover your own patterns and design the ideal year for yourself.

YearCompass offers a free alternative to New Year’s Resolutions. Available as A4 and A5 PDFs in several languages, the booklet can be completed digitally or by hand.

YearCompass PDFs contain two sections: reflecting on the past year and planning for the next. Each section features prompts to help users assess priorities and prepare for the future.

There are no rigid guidelines for completing YearCompass. Although the book recommends taking breaks between sections, many people choose to complete it in one go. I often focus on specific sections rather than the entire document, as I usually have what I need by a certain point.

2024 Retrospective

In this section, I reflect on my 2024 goals and evaluate my progress with them.

Build Technology Projects

As a cloud enthusiast, I want to complete valuable project builds so that I can develop and validate my knowledge and skills, and have subject matter for future session abstracts.

Exiting 2023, I felt I had done much theory but little practice. I had completed online learning, attended events and recertified my AWS SysOps Administrator certification, yet I still felt lacking in hands-on experience.

Well no more! Throughout 2024, I worked on my WordPress AWS Data Pipeline series, which greatly enhanced my understanding of several AWS services and cloud architectures. Also, I explored the AWS CloudFormation IaC Generator and DuckDB-WASM in February and June respectively.

Separately, in July, I joined Steamhaus as an AWS Consultant, where I build, scale, and optimise cloud solutions for clients. This role involves unique projects spanning diverse organisations, requiring creative problem-solving and offering many opportunities to learn and grow. And 2025 is already shaping up to be an interesting year!

Additionally, I earned the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate certification in A ugust, validating my skills in areas including ETL, orchestration, model design and quality assurance.

Learnings from this certification have already found their way into my blog posts, sessions and client projects.

And speaking of sessions…

Build My Personal Brand

As an IT professional I want to build my personal brand so that I improve my soft skills and define my public image.

And to think that, at the start of 2024, I had no idea how this was going to go…

Having done my first session at 2023’s New Stars Of Data online event, 2024 was the first year I stepped onto an actual stage! After presenting my Building And Automating Serverless Auto-Scaling Data Pipelines In AWS session at AWS Community Summit London in April, I went on to present it at several user groups, a paid event and even internationally!

This year, I also launched a YouTube channel, primarily intended to practise and enhance my speaking skills. Although the channel has been somewhat dormant, I’ve been kinda busy!

Recently, I began a series of shorts to boost my spontaneous speaking ability. It appears to be working for me, and there’s still plenty to film!

Finally, in September I met Cat Mawdsley and Dan Knowles at Northern Reach for the first time. Northern Reach focuses on providing technology and innovation-driven business engagement initiatives for partners in both the public and private sectors across Northern England.

I was born and raised in Lancashire, and quickly discovered their ambitious plans for the region. We got chatting, one thing led to another and, well, I’ll have some exciting news to share soon about something I’m part of!

Build A Second Brain

As just a normal man I want to build a second brain so that I can organise my resources and work more efficiently.

So this is the goal with the least progress, but only because the first two goals blew up beyond anything I could have envisaged! Having read Building A Second Brain in January, I started putting some of the ideas into practice.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Damien Jones (@amazonwebshark)

Firstly, I’m a big fan of the CODE information consumption method:

Capture
Organise
Distill
Express

In some ways I was already doing this, but lacked a framework or set of steps to follow. I now use CODE in several areas of my life, and while it’s not yet fully embedded everywhere it is starting to make a difference.

However, I’m no fan of the PARA organisational system:

Project
Area
Resource
Archive

Tiago Forte and I define Project very differently, and I dislike using Archive to describe anything. Archive always feels like a nondescript collection of stuff, which is what a Second Brain should not be. Even Tiago defines Archive as:

Anything from the previous three categories that is no longer active, but you might want to save for future reference.
https://fortelabs.com/blog/para/

Nah. Not for me.

Ultimately, my Second Brain isn’t where I want it to be right now. But to be fair, a second brain is never really finished as it constantly grows and evolves like a human brain. In 2025, I’ll be examining some Second Brain-related AI and SaaS tools and might make some related content if I think it’ll be helpful.

2025 Goals

In this section, I use YearCompass to decide on my 2025 professional goals. For each goal, I’ll explain my reasoning and then write a user story.

Community Investment

I am deeply grateful for the tech communities that supported me throughout 2024. They offered me opportunities to learn, grow and connect with like-minded peers who share my passion for technology. I was invited to speak at several local and international events, and I strongly believe that my journey to Steamhaus began at AWS community events.

In 2025, I plan to build on these experiences by continuing to contribute through speaking engagements, writing, and social support, as well as giving operational user group support. In this way, I hope to strengthen and grow the communities that played such an integral role in my 2024 successes.

On a personal note, I look forward to continuing the growth journey that the communities have nurtured. This includes enhancing my confidence, refining interpersonal skills, strengthening relationships and expanding my experiences. Just like any solid investment – everyone benefits.

As an active tech community member, I want to support and grow these communities through content, involvement and participation so that both the communities and I thrive.

That said…

Gestalt Cycles

I did a lot in 2024, and looking back I didn’t allow much downtime. Feelings of ‘I should be doing something’ constantly ran into evenings, weekends, and annual leave, and I increasingly noticed disrupted sleep, diminished health and fitness and heightened anxiety as a result.

I’ve burned myself out before so I recognise the signs. And as keen as I am to continue on this unexpected, wild and incredible journey I’m currently on, I also don’t want to end up utterly cooked.

Turning this into a goal was hard as nothing really fit. The closest match I’ve found so far is Gestalt Cycles. This describes the natural rhythm of completing an experience, from identifying a need to achieving closure.

Each cycle involves several stages:

The idea focuses on completing each stage fully to maintain balance and well-being, avoiding lingering stress while creating space for rest and renewal. This aligns closely with what I need. My challenge hasn’t been starting or finishing tasks – it’s been allowing enough recovery time between them.

This aligns with Animas Coaching‘s Withdrawal stage definition:

Finally, after the satisfaction of the need or desire, individuals withdraw, returning to a state of relative equilibrium. This stage offers an opportunity for rest and reflection before the cycle recommences with a new sensation.
https://www.animascoaching.com/blog/gestalt-cycle-of-experience/

And with Shea Stevens‘ comments based on the works of Rosemarie Wulf et al:

…the goal is to find relief and meet needs in a way that they are assimilated, such that the organism is truly integrating what it takes in, and what is taken in is a good fit for the organism.
https://www.gestalttherapyblog.com/blog/gestalt-cycle

I have 2025 ambitions around fitness, home improvements and landscaping. To enable these, I’ll need to ease off the accelerator occasionally. So with all this in mind:

As an individual with multiple workstreams, I want to apply Gestalt cycles to recognize when a task is complete and take intentional breaks, so that I can improve my wellbeing and maintain consistent energy and focus.

Be The Change

Definitely the most LinkedIn-sounding of the three. But hear me out. This goal stems from Mahatma Gandhi’s quote:

Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi…erm…

Expect that’s not what he said. But I digress.

“Be the change” is about taking personal responsibility to embody the values and actions you want to inspire in others. It emphasises proactivity and self-empowerment over simply waiting for change to happen.

Throughout my career, I’ve had ideas I wanted to share and a strong desire to contribute. However, I have constantly struggled with self-confidence, self-doubt and articulating my thoughts.

This changed in 2024. Through my professional role, speaking engagements and involvement in the AWS community, I gained the confidence and ability to express and implement my insights and ideas. This let me enhance my skills and uncover new opportunities, leading to beneficial outcomes for myself, my colleagues and clients and the wider tech community.

In 2025, I’m committed to embracing this newfound confidence to present and support ideas and changes that matter to me. By doing so, I hope to build stronger relationships, deliver impactful projects and advance initiatives that reflect my values and passions.

As a hard working dog dad, I want to confidently embrace and act on my ideas and opinions so that I can make meaningful contributions and changes to myself, my peers and clients and the wider tech community.

Summary

In this post, I used the free YearCompass booklet to reflect on 2024 and to plan some professional goals for 2025.

Reflecting on 2024 has highlighted key lessons and opportunities for growth, helping me shape an exciting vision for 2025. I’m eager to see where the new year leads and to share progress along the way! I’ll post updates here and via my social, project and session links, which are available via the button below:

Thanks for reading ~~^~~

Tags Amazon Web Services, amazonwebshark Videos, Certifications, Project: WordPress AWS Data Pipeline (2024), Speaking, YearCompass, YearCompass Goals