I’m a fan of the Terraform Authoring and Operational Professional certification exam and I have taken the AWS edition (and passed it!) as well as the alpha version of the Azure edition.
Should you take the exam? Since I started working in IT I have found that certifications provide me with guidance on what I should learn about a given technology area. For me this is valuable information. I know that a certification curriculum is not all-encompassing, but it usually covers the essentials for what you “should know” of the given technology.
I know that certifications are not perfect, especially certifications where exams only consists of multiple-choice questions. What I like about the professional Terraform certification is that it is lab-based, where you actually need to know how to use Terraform to solve real problems. These types of exams are fun and I believe they show that you know the technology in a hands-on way. With that said, if your only motivation to take the exam is that you want to have fun then it might not be worth it - but this certification is a good way to get a “stamp of recognition” that you know Terraform. If your employer pays for your certification, then I suggest you take the opportunity and do it!
Will we see any updates to the exam in 2026? My prediction is that we will see the release of the Azure edition of the exam sometime in the second half of the year. Note that I do not know this for sure, I base this on the fact that I did the alpha version of the exam a few months ago. If I was HashiCorp I would work to release the exam sometime before HashiConf that will take place in October 2026.
If you are planning to take the exam this year (either the AWS or Azure edition) and want to follow along a structured study guide you can start out with the official learning path from HashiCorp, and if you want to take it one step further I have two different study guides available as e-books1 on Leanpub:
During 2025 I made minor grammar updates in the AWS edition as well as officially released the Azure edition of my book. This year I will order a few printed copies of the Azure edition (as well as the AWS edition) and hand out at my HashiCorp User Group and at conferences. I am ready to update both books in case there are any changes to the underlying exam contents. If you buy my book from Leanpub you will receive all future updates for free. To keep up with the changes I make to the book you can follow the changelog repository:
I might have to renew the exam later this year, because the validity is only two years. I will most likely do the Azure edition of the exam (if it is released).
As a side note I want to highlight that this was my first blog post of 2026!
I’ll shamelessly hide a coupon here for a free AWS-edition of my book, three copies available: https://leanpub.com/terraform-professional-certification/c/DD754D5838CF ↩︎
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