Certificates tell you a team passed an exam. How that team delivers tells you whether your system survives a resignation, a public holiday or a 2am outage. When you choose a technology partner, you need evidence of both.
This article sets out what our credentials are, what they mean in practice, and the delivery habits that sit behind them, so you can judge for yourself who would build and run your platform.
Partner tiers are earned, not bought
AWS partner tiers are awarded against published criteria: certified people, validated customer work and technical reviews. They are not a sponsorship package. Ours are:
- AWS Select Tier Services Partner. The tier recognises a partner with certified staff and customer projects AWS has validated.
- AWS Well-Architected Partner. This designation requires architects certified at Professional level and trained in AWS’s own review method. It is why we can run Well-Architected Reviews against all six pillars and record the results in the AWS Well-Architected Tool.
- AWS Qualified Software. Our learnership platform, CloudPOE, passed the AWS Foundational Technical Review, AWS’s check of security, reliability and operational practice for software built on AWS.
What the certifications cover
A count on its own says little. What matters is whether the right disciplines are covered for the work you need. Here is our current bench, as listed on our partners page:
| Discipline | Certification | Held |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional | 2 |
| Architecture | AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate | 2 |
| DevOps | AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional | 2 |
| Development | AWS Certified Developer – Associate | 2 |
| Cloud foundations | AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner | 5 |
| Business | AWS Cloud, Sales and Marketing accreditations | 5 |
| Cost governance | FinOps certifications | 4 |
| Agile delivery | Scrum Master certifications | 3 |
| Adoption | Change management specialists | 4 |
Three things are worth noticing.
Professional level matters. AWS Professional certifications are the hardest in the programme and test design decisions across many services, not just knowledge of one. Our reviews and architecture work are led by people who hold them.
Cost has its own discipline. Four FinOps-certified practitioners means cost is designed in and reviewed monthly, not discovered on the first invoice.
Adoption is part of delivery. Change management specialists prepare your staff before a new system goes live. A platform nobody uses is a failed project, however well it is built.
The habits behind the certificates
Credentials get a team through the door. These habits are what keep a system running years later:
- A lead, a fall-over and a backup on every project. No single person holds the knowledge of your system. If someone is on leave, ill or moves on, the work continues.
- Daily stand-ups. Issues surface the same day, not at the next steering committee.
- Fortnightly sprints. Each sprint has planning, a review you can attend, and a retrospective, so you see working software every two weeks.
- Well-Architected by default. Security, reliability, performance, cost and sustainability are designed in from the start, not added after a review finds gaps.
- Training that stays. As an ICITP-accredited trainer, we train the people who will run what we build, so your team owns the system after handover.
What this looks like on real projects
These habits are why we can take on work where failure has consequences. The platform we built for the Solidarity Fund identified beneficiaries and delivered emergency food parcels to more than 320,000 households during the 2020 lockdown and the KwaZulu-Natal unrest. Nzalo Expo System 2.0 runs across 626 schools in 37 regions. For Covision’s MyLife Plus platform, we ran a Well-Architected Review and a remediation plan across security, reliability, operations and cost.
On the training side, the same people who build production systems teach on programmes such as Java and Quarkus microservices for BMW IT Hub South Africa, the Derivco Graduate Programme, and the AI Software Developer qualification delivered for Telkom via Khano Training Institute.
How to check any partner, including us
Whoever you choose, ask for evidence rather than adjectives:
- Ask for the partner tier and designations, then confirm them on the vendor’s partner directory.
- Ask who exactly will work on your project, and which certifications they hold.
- Ask what happens when your lead engineer is on leave. If the answer is a pause, you have a single point of failure.
- Ask to attend a sprint review in the first month.
- Ask for compliance documents. Ours (B-BBEE Level 1, SARS tax compliance and CIPC registration) are available on request.
Frequently asked questions
What does AWS Select Tier mean?
It is a level in the AWS Partner Network awarded to services partners that meet AWS’s requirements for certified staff and validated customer projects. You can confirm a partner’s tier in the AWS Partner directory.
What is the AWS Foundational Technical Review?
It is AWS’s review of software built on AWS, covering security, reliability and operational practice. CloudPOE passed it, which is why it is listed as AWS Qualified Software.
Will certified engineers actually work on my project?
Yes. Our reviews are led by AWS Certified Solutions Architects at Professional level, and every project has a named lead, fall-over and backup. Ask us who they are before you sign.
Talk to the people who would build it
If you want to know who would design, build and run your platform, and what they are certified in, talk to one of our architects. Our full credentials are on the partners page.