Editor's Note: The AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder – Specialty exam is now generally available. Learn more.

If you’re looking to gain recognition for your skill-building experience, there’s no better way than with AWS Training and Certification. We’re excited to announce that AWS Training and Certification is offering a new AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder – Specialty beta exam and new self-paced, digital training courses to help you enhance your voice design skills. This new beta exam and training courses are available globally, so don’t miss out on this opportunity to validate your knowledge and showcase your skills.

Become a Certified Alexa Skill Builder to Validate Your Experience and Advance Your Career

Become among the first Alexa developers to validate your skill-building experience and receive an industry-recognized certification you can use to enhance your voice design career. The AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder – Specialty beta exam validates what you’ve learned about building, testing, publishing, and certifying Amazon Alexa skills. You’ll also have an opportunity to provide feedback on the exam prior to its general availability.

“Any AWS certification carries a level of integrity and credibility that can be trusted and distinguishes talent. It helps verify that the developer is a credible expert,” says Bob Stolzberg, Alexa Champion and founder and CEO of VoiceXP. “We plan to only hire certified developers to work on our customers’ voice experiences.”

We recommend that developers taking the exam have at least six months of hands-on experience designing and building Alexa skills, proficiency with a programming language, and published at least one Alexa skill. When you successfully pass the beta exam, you will hold an AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder – Specialty Certification and have access to other AWS Training and Certification benefits and resources, including digital badges to use on your social media profiles and email signatures. Click here to learn more and register for the certification exam.

Get Alexa Skills Training with AWS

To help you prepare for the exam, AWS Training and Certification is releasing new on-demand training courses. These free, self-paced digital courses include:

• Getting in the Voice Mindset: Get a quick introduction to voice-based applications. Learn why voice-based applications are the ubiquitous expectation these days and how they can add value to a business.
• Introduction to Skill Concepts: In this short interactive course, you'll learn about different components of an utterance and examples of how one might interact with Alexa to invoke a skill.
• Designing for Conversation: Learn about the design methods we recommend you use to develop engaging conversational voice user interfaces (VUI). You'll follow the process we used to design “The Foodie” skill for Alexa, imagining and analyzing user interactions through a series of exercises aimed at exposing and designing around the nuances of human conversation.

These courses, which provide foundational through intermediate level knowledge, are great for beginners looking to begin their skill-building journey. They are also impactful for decision makers exploring voice for their businesses. Click here to learn more about these AWS training courses.

Your ability to build Alexa skills opens up many opportunities for new business ideas, a new career in voice, and new customer experiences. With the new online training and specialty certification, you can accelerate your skill-building journey. We can’t wait to see what you build.