From duct-tape AWS to production-grade.
A 6-week cohort for engineers who ship to AWS but still guess on architecture. Live calls, AI-assisted reviews, and real decisions — not tutorials.
Founding cohort: $797 · Full price after: $2,000–$2,500
The problem
You ship to AWS. You still guess on half your decisions.
Not because you're bad — because nobody teaches this. Docs describe knobs. Certs test trivia. AI hands you confident answers with no context. You're left piecing judgment together from incidents.
You guess at 'Lambda or a container'
You pick one, hope the team agrees, and keep second-guessing it until the next refactor.
AI says "yes, use X" — you don't know if it's right
Claude or Cursor hands you confident answers. You ship them because pushing back means reading 40 tabs of docs.
Your bill surprises you monthly
NAT egress, CloudWatch ingestion, cross-AZ transfer — nobody told you until finance forwarded the invoice.
Certs passed, judgment missing
SAA and SAP test trivia. They don't prepare you for 'should this be a Step Function or SQS?' at 11pm on a Friday.
What changes
Six weeks in, you decide like someone who's seen 100 AWS accounts.
Because we have — and we teach the judgment behind every decision.
- You have decision frameworks — "containers here, serverless there"
- You judge AI's answers instead of accepting them
- You spot cost traps before they hit the bill
- You've built and shipped a real AI-powered AWS app
- You defend your architecture in review — with receipts
- You push back on bad patterns, confidently
Who this is for
This is for you if
- You ship to production on AWS but your architecture is held together with duct tape
- You've passed AWS certs but still guess on real-world decisions
- You want to build AI features (RAG, chat, classification) on AWS — the right way
- Your company will expense professional development (most cohort members do)
- You want senior engineers to review your actual architecture — not a toy example
This is NOT for you if
- You want AWS cert prep (we are not cert-focused — try Stephane Maarek or freeCodeCamp)
- You've never deployed to AWS (this cohort assumes you can)
- You want passive watch-only content (this is live and active)
Curriculum
Six weeks, one reference project. Each week you make real architecture decisions — then we review them.
Topic
Project setup, API, IaC, account structure
AWS decisions
IaC choice, project structure, API Gateway vs ALB, Lambda vs containers
AI component
Foundation only
Topic
Data layer + core features
AWS decisions
DynamoDB vs RDS, data modeling, single-table vs relational
AI component
AI classification (Bedrock)
Topic
Assets, search, library features
AWS decisions
S3, OpenSearch vs DynamoDB queries, caching
AI component
Vector embeddings, semantic search
Topic
Document knowledge base + RAG
AWS decisions
S3 for documents, async processing (SQS/EventBridge)
AI component
Bedrock Knowledge Bases, RAG, chunking
Topic
Chat interface + guardrails
AWS decisions
Auth (Cognito), WebSockets vs polling, API design
AI component
Bedrock chat, prompt engineering, Guardrails
Topic
Observability, security, cost, production readiness
AWS decisions
CloudWatch, IAM, cost optimization, CI/CD
AI component
AI cost monitoring
Your 6-week schedule
Same rhythm every week. Block your calendar once — no guessing what happens when.
Times shown in CET. We'll publish the synced calendar invite once founding-cohort dates are locked.
How each week works
A 4-step loop designed to build judgment, not just knowledge. AI is woven in — not bolted on.
- 1
Learn
Pre-recorded content on the week's architecture category. Watch before the call.
- 2
Decide
Apply the decision framework to your real project. Document your reasoning.
- 3
AI check
Run your architecture past AI — then critique the AI's answer.
- 4
Review
AI-assisted 1:1 feedback (95% automated) + live group call to discuss.
The through-line
"AI always says yes. We teach you to judge."
Your instructors
20+ years of combined AWS experience across startups and enterprises. You'll learn from both of us, not just one.
We started AWS Fundamentals because we couldn't find practical AWS content that helped us do our jobs. We write every newsletter, book, and YouTube video together — and we'll teach this cohort together.
Tobias Schmidt
Cloud Engineer & Educator
Tobi has migrated production workloads for startups and large enterprises. He's fallen into every AWS trap so you don't have to — the hands-on experience building resilient, large-scale applications is what shapes the decision frameworks.
Sandro Volpicella
Fullstack Developer & AWS Specialist
Sandro helps startups and enterprises build scalable, cost-effective serverless solutions. As an AWS Community Builder and conference speaker, he brings the ability to explain complex patterns clearly — and the judgment from shipping real indie products.
Our guarantee
Complete the work, and you're not confident in your architecture? Free 1:1 architecture review with Sandro or Tobi. Still not satisfied? Redo the next cohort, free.
We take this seriously because building real judgment is a promise we can keep.
Wall of love
Kind words from AWS leadership and peers.
From our newsletter and books. The cohort is new — founding members shape the first round of cohort testimonials.
Focused on AWS usage in the real world — goes deeper than simply providing the information needed to obtain certifications. The per-service infographics also look amazing!
👏 This is awesome, Tobias!
Amazing!
I'm excited about this one. We get a lot of web dev and JS around here, and we're missing more cloud, infrastructure, and engineering fundamentals.
Jezzzz this is amazing and I'll love to translate it.
Keep an eye on this release if you are interested in learning about AWS fundamentals.
Founding cohort pricing
10 seats. Founding-cohort members shape the curriculum — and lock in the lowest price we'll ever offer.
Founding cohort · 10 seats · Full price after: $2,000–$2,500
- 6-week live cohort (2 live calls per week)
- AI-assisted 1:1 architecture reviews on your real project
- Decision framework library you keep forever
- Private Slack/Discord community
- Office hours recordings library
- Direct access to Sandro + Tobi during the cohort
- Complete-it guarantee: redo the next cohort free if you're not satisfied
Waitlist only for now. We'll email you when founding-cohort seats open.
Reserve your founding seat.
10 seats. Waitlist members get first access.
Not ready yet? Start with the newsletter.