CloudDojo: Building Something Real for Cloud Certification Prep

The Problem (And Why I Actually Started This)

Look, let's be honest here - cloud certification prep is a complete mess.

I'd been through the AWS certification grind myself, spending way too much money on courses that were either outdated or just dumps of practice questions with zero context. You know the drill - memorize this, remember that, hope for the best on exam day. It felt more like playing the lottery than actually learning.

What really got to me was watching other developers struggle with the same thing. Smart people, good engineers, but they'd fail their certs because the prep materials were garbage. Not because they couldn't do the job - they just couldn't navigate through all the noise to find what actually mattered.

So I built CloudDojo. Not because I had some grand vision, but because I was frustrated and figured there had to be a better way.

How I Approached Building It

The Core Idea

Instead of another brain dump site, I wanted to build something that actually teaches you. The approach was straightforward:

Make it personal - Every developer's weak spots are different. Why should everyone study the same way?

Make it smart - Use AI to actually understand where someone's struggling, not just track right/wrong answers.

Make it practical - Focus on real scenarios you'd face on the job, not memorizing service names.

Development Philosophy

I'm a big believer in building fast and iterating. CloudDojo started as a simple Next.js app that I could get running quickly, then evolved based on what users actually needed

The whole thing follows a pretty standard modern web development approach:

• Ship early, get feedback, improve

• Keep the architecture simple but scalable

• Focus on the user experience over fancy tech

• Test everything that matters

The development process was pretty agile - short sprints, constant user feedback, lots of pivoting when something wasn't working.

The Tech Stack (What Actually Runs It)

Frontend - Next.js with TypeScript

Built the whole frontend on Next.js 14 with TypeScript

Next.js made sense because I needed both static pages for content and dynamic functionality for the practice tests. The type safety from TypeScript was crucial - when you're dealing with complex user progress data and AI responses, you don't want runtime surprises.

The UI is built with shadcn/ui components on top of Radix UI primitives

This combo was perfect because:

• shadcn/ui gives you beautiful, accessible components that you actually own (no dependency hell)

• Radix handles all the complex accessibility stuff like focus management and ARIA attributes

• Everything's built with Tailwind CSS, so customization is straightforward

• You copy-paste the components into your project, so no worries about breaking changes from updates

Backend & Database

The backend runs on AWS with a PostgreSQL database

I went with Postgres because it's rock solid for the kind of relational data I'm dealing with - user progress, question relationships, analytics data. Plus it scales well when you need it to.

For scheduled tasks like updating user streaks or sending reminder emails, I set up cron jobs using AWS EventBridge and Lambda

Way cleaner than trying to manage cron jobs on a server somewhere.

The AI Layer

The personalization engine is where things get interesting. I trained custom models to analyze user performance patterns and generate explanations that actually make sense. It's not just "here's the right answer" - it explains why other options are wrong and connects concepts together.

Infrastructure

Everything runs on AWS because that's what most of our users are studying for anyway

The infrastructure is containerized and auto-scales based on demand. I use EventBridge for scheduling background jobs like progress updates and email notifications

Version Control & Collaboration

Git Workflow

I keep the Git workflow simple but effective:

main branch - What's running in production. Every commit here gets deployed automatically.

develop branch - Integration branch where features come together before going live.

feature branches - Individual features or fixes. Named descriptively like feature/ai-explanations or fix/progress-tracking.

All pull requests require review, and I've got automated tests that run on every commit. Nothing gets merged without passing the test suite.

Code Quality

I'm pretty strict about code quality because maintaining this thing solo means I need to be able to understand my own code six months later:

• TypeScript for everything to catch errors early

• Automated linting and formatting

• Unit tests for critical functionality

• Integration tests for user workflows

User Growth & What's Actually Working

The Numbers

CloudDojo has grown to over 12,000 developers since launch, which honestly surprised me. I wasn't expecting that kind of traction, but it turns out a lot of people were frustrated with the same problems I was.

The platform covers AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud certifications, with more than 1,000 practice scenarios based on real-world situations.

Community Building

The growth has been mostly organic - people telling other people about it. I've built a WhatsApp community where users can ask questions and share experiences, which has become surprisingly active.

The success rate speaks for itself. Users who go through CloudDojo's AI-powered prep have significantly higher pass rates than industry averages, and more importantly, they feel confident about what they've learned.

Revenue Model

I went with a freemium approach - core practice tests are free, advanced AI features and detailed analytics are behind a paywall. There's a 14-day money-back guarantee because I believe in the product and want people to actually try it before committing.

What's Next

Short Term

I'm working on mobile apps because a lot of people want to study during commutes or downtime. The web app works on mobile, but a native experience would be better.

Also expanding the cybersecurity certifications since that's where a lot of the demand is heading.

Long Term

The real opportunity is in enterprise training. Companies spend millions on certification programs that don't work very well. CloudDojo's personalized approach could be a game-changer for corporate training programs.

I'm also exploring partnerships with certification bodies themselves - imagine if the actual cert providers used AI-powered prep instead of the terrible practice tests they have now.

The Real Impact

Here's what I'm most proud of: CloudDojo isn't just helping people pass tests. It's helping developers actually understand cloud technologies well enough to use them effectively.

Every week I get messages from people who not only passed their certs but got promoted or landed better jobs because they actually knew what they were talking about in interviews. That's the difference between memorizing answers and actually learning.

The platform has grown beyond what I originally envisioned, but the core mission stays the same - make cloud certification prep not suck. Turns out that was a bigger problem than I thought, and there were a lot more frustrated developers out there than I realized.

CloudDojo keeps evolving based on what users actually need, not what I think they should need. That's been the key to its success.