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Operations · DevOps roadmap

You deploy, monitor and automate AWS infrastructure and keep it running reliably. Build a practical base with the operations certification (SOA), then move on to the DevOps professional (DOP), which oversees pipelines and automation.

An operations role is verified on how to keep things running more than on how to build them. SOA covers working with a system that is already up — monitoring, backup, cost, incident response — and DOP covers that same operation raised to the level of automation and pipelines. If you have not done a task by hand in SOA, then even when it shows up as an automation target in DOP, you will not get a feel for what is being automated.

Certifications: 3
Curriculum length: 34 weeks · 170 days
Total exam fees: $550

Operations · DevOps certification exams at a glance

Exam	Questions · Time	Passing score	Exam fee	Recommended level
CLF-C02	65 questions · 90 min	700 / 1000	$100	Foundational · No prior knowledge required
SOA-C02	65 questions · 130 min	720 / 1000	$150	Intermediate · 1-2 years of relevant hands-on experience recommended
DOP-C02	75 questions · 180 min	750 / 1000	$300	Advanced · 2+ years of hands-on experience recommended

How to study for the Operations · DevOps certifications

The DevOps engineer certification (DOP) asks about operations in an automated state. Before that, if you have done CloudWatch alarms and logs, backups, patching and incident response by hand once each — the SOA scope — you will see “what is being automated” in DOP questions.
CloudFormation and Systems Manager come up again and again across the operations and DevOps exams. Study them together: rollback when a stack update fails, drift detection, and automation documents (runbooks).
CI/CD questions pair deployment strategies (blue/green, canary, rolling) with how to revert on failure. It helps to make a table of how the default rollback behavior differs by service.

Frequently asked questions

Which AWS certification should a DevOps engineer earn?: The end goal is DOP (DevOps Engineer – Professional). If you have little operations experience, we recommend first building a base in monitoring, deployment and incident response with SOA, then moving on to DOP.
Can I go straight to DOP without SOA?: There is no eligibility requirement. However, DOP asks how to automate operational tasks, so if you have never done those tasks themselves (setting alarms, analyzing logs, restoring backups), studying the SOA scope first ends up faster.
Do certifications help when working as a DevOps engineer?: A certification alone does not prove hands-on ability, but it makes you survey the AWS operations and automation services without gaps, which is good for scoping what to study. If you build an actual pipeline while you study, you will also have something to explain in interviews.
How long does it take to finish the Operations · DevOps roadmap?: In the order CLF-C02 → SOA-C02 → DOP-C02, that comes to 34 weeks (170 days in total) of the CertNote curriculum. We based this on reading one day's lesson per day; if you have hands-on experience, you can move quickly through the weeks you already know. The exam fees add up to $550 in total.

The notes for every certification are free in every week. Prepare in order to fit your target role. Exam fees are based on the official AWS exam guides; exchange rates and taxes at the time of payment are extra.

Operations · DevOps certification exams at a glance

Exam	Questions · Time	Passing score	Exam fee	Recommended level
CLF-C02	65 questions · 90 min	700 / 1000	$100	Foundational · No prior knowledge required
SOA-C02	65 questions · 130 min	720 / 1000	$150	Intermediate · 1-2 years of relevant hands-on experience recommended
DOP-C02	75 questions · 180 min	750 / 1000	$300	Advanced · 2+ years of hands-on experience recommended

How to study for the Operations · DevOps certifications

The DevOps engineer certification (DOP) asks about operations in an automated state. Before that, if you have done CloudWatch alarms and logs, backups, patching and incident response by hand once each — the SOA scope — you will see “what is being automated” in DOP questions.

CloudFormation and Systems Manager come up again and again across the operations and DevOps exams. Study them together: rollback when a stack update fails, drift detection, and automation documents (runbooks).

CI/CD questions pair deployment strategies (blue/green, canary, rolling) with how to revert on failure. It helps to make a table of how the default rollback behavior differs by service.

Frequently asked questions

Which AWS certification should a DevOps engineer earn?

The end goal is DOP (DevOps Engineer – Professional). If you have little operations experience, we recommend first building a base in monitoring, deployment and incident response with SOA, then moving on to DOP.

Can I go straight to DOP without SOA?

There is no eligibility requirement. However, DOP asks how to automate operational tasks, so if you have never done those tasks themselves (setting alarms, analyzing logs, restoring backups), studying the SOA scope first ends up faster.

Do certifications help when working as a DevOps engineer?

A certification alone does not prove hands-on ability, but it makes you survey the AWS operations and automation services without gaps, which is good for scoping what to study. If you build an actual pipeline while you study, you will also have something to explain in interviews.

How long does it take to finish the Operations · DevOps roadmap?

In the order CLF-C02 → SOA-C02 → DOP-C02, that comes to 34 weeks (170 days in total) of the CertNote curriculum. We based this on reading one day's lesson per day; if you have hands-on experience, you can move quickly through the weeks you already know. The exam fees add up to $550 in total.