2025 Certification List Update: More Ups Than Downs

2025 has been way more ups than downs. Admittedly, I initially didn’t think that given how my federal job got rescinded; yet, here I am December 2025 in a much better position. I will be going through month by month. Here is the original 2025 certification list for transparency.

2025 Overall

I have passed 9 certification exams. Only one, AWS machine learning engineer associate was on the original 2025 certification list.

Let’s talk about that original list. I am doing the CISSP in 2026. My job search has changed so much that I didn’t need to sit for the PL-300, DP-600 and DP-700. The federal government completely did away with 1560 data science job series all of discal year 2024–2025. The 1560 did not return until October 2025. 10 whole months later.

I was happy that the 2025 Oracle Race to Certification returns giving me an opportunity to renew all of my Oracle Cloud certifications for FREE. I have also converted my Multi-cloud architect associate to professional and gotten the new Oracle Database@AWS Architect Professional certifications.

The AWS machine learning specialty will retire March 31, 2026. I am instantly studying to pass the AWS Generative AI developer professional beta exam because I already have the AI Practitioner and Machine…