How BeSA Started and What's Next!

A free mentoring program that helped thousands excel in their cloud careers

Hey, Prasad here 👋 I'm the voice behind the weekly newsletter "Big Tech Careers."

In this week's article, I share how we started the BeSA (Become a Solutions Architect) free mentoring program and everything you want to know about the upcoming batch.

If you like the article, click the ❤️ icon. That helps me know you enjoy reading my content.

---

Many of you joined this newsletter while signing up for BeSA (Become a Solutions Architect) but might not know how it all started and the thought process behind it. If you've been wondering about the journey from a simple LinkedIn post to a global mentoring program that's helped thousands upskill on AWS and dozens land AWS roles, here's the complete story—and what's coming next in Batch 8.

The Accidental Beginning: Q4 2019

When I joined AWS as a Solutions Architect in Q4 2019, I had zero previous experience with AWS. I was ramping up steeply and getting AWS certified like my career depended on it—which, honestly, it did.

I achieved all 3 AWS Associate level certifications at that time in my first 3 months. The learning curve was brutal, but I was enjoying the process and gaining a lot of knowledge.

The LinkedIn Experiment: Early 2020

I started posting my learnings on LinkedIn in Q1 2020 and offered to help anyone who was on a similar path. What started as casual knowledge sharing quickly turned into something unexpected.

A lot of queries started coming in, so I thought: why not run a 12-week weekend batch for free and mentor a few folks who want to achieve the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification?

Around Q2 2020, I put out a Google form. To my surprise, more than 1,000 people registered.

Here's the thing—I was myself pretty new, and there was no way I could mentor 1,000 people. I randomly shortlisted 20 people for the first batch and ran a small cohort.

The reality check was immediate: this needed to be more than a one-person show if it was going to have real impact.

The Growing Pains: 2020-2021

I ran a couple more batches on my own with max 35-40 people after that, but I had to stop a batch midway when COVID hit India badly and I had to travel back to India.

The experience taught me that good intentions aren't enough when you're trying to scale impact. You need systems, you need people, and you need sustainability.

After coming back, it was Q4 2021 when Ashish Prajapati reached out saying he was doing something similar in his own capacity and would like to do something together.

I realized that if I wanted to scale this mentoring initiative, more people would be needed.

Around the same time, Jamila Jamilova reached out to contribute, and two of colleagues in her team—Christelle J Vinot and Alex Paramonov—were also interested in contributing.

The Genesis of BeSA: Early 2022

So we five had meetings in late 2021/early 2022 that became BeSA. The idea was simple: help people excel in their cloud career and become Solutions Architects by upleveling them on both technical and behavioral skills.

The name was coined by Ashish—BeSA (Become a Solutions Architect)—and it instantly hit the chord with all of us.

We started our first official cohort in Q2 2022 and have run 7 cohorts since.

What is covered in a BeSA cohort

Each cohort focuses on both technical and behavioral skills to help you excel in your cloud career and gain skills to become a solutions architect.

Technical topics:

• Initial batch covered IT and AWS fundamentals

• Later batches picked up specialties for different cohorts: serverless and security

• Last 2 batches (Batch 6 and 7) covered GenAI fundamentals and GenAI hands-on workshops

You can watch the recordings by navigating BeSA YouTube playlists.

Behavioral skills: We've covered all soft skills required to become a Solutions Architect: whiteboarding, public speaking, writing, interviewing. We have had 20+ guest speakers over the batches covering diverse topics.

One of the most popular BeSA track has been playlist for AWS Solutions Architect Interview Process, where we had AWS leaders as guest speakers share their insights.

The Power of Volunteers: Why This Works

Along the way, each batch brought more volunteers to support us. BeSA is a volunteer-led program, free of cost for people joining. Running this program wouldn't have been possible without volunteers who believe in the mission.

One volunteer-turned-core-member I want to highlight is Parna Mehta. She was a BeSA mentee in the first couple of batches and landed a job at AWS after attending the program.

As soon as she joined AWS, she wanted to give back and has consistently contributed to BeSA to an extent that she's now one of the core members.

This is the compound effect of community-driven mentoring: mentees become mentors, creating a sustainable cycle of knowledge transfer.

The Success Stories: Why We Continue

We've had many success stories—people getting upskilled, certified, and landing jobs. More than 10 people who attended BeSA have gotten into AWS.

We don't formally track outcomes, but messages like the ones we receive regularly keep us motivated to run at least 2 batches of BeSA every year.

The real measure of success isn't just job placements—it's watching people transform their confidence, their technical skills, and their career trajectory.

Also, a random message like this makes my day!

The Recognition: External Validation

The support from AWS leadership has been incredible. Jeff Barr, Chief Evangelist, AWS has been a long-time champion for BeSA, and starting last batch, we even have support from leaders like Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon and Swami Sivasubramanian, VP, Agentic AI, AWS.

BeSA got nominated for an award ‘Excellence in Learning and Development’ by Digital Revolution Awards—recognition that wouldn't have been possible without volunteer support and community engagement.

In the same award show, I won the individual category award for contribution to the AWS community, largely for BeSA efforts and the book "Cloud Career Journeys."

Speaking of the book—"Cloud Career Journeys" that Ashish and I wrote was direct feedback from the BeSA community. That's a story for another time.

What's Next: Cohort 8 details

Here are the topics for the upcoming BeSA cohort:

• 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤: Migration and Modernization on AWS

• 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤: Essential Skills for Next Generation SAs

Here's the full schedule and agenda for Batch 8, starting September 6:

Here are all the details to join:

- 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: Saturday, September 6th
- 𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: 6 weeks
- 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠: 90-minute sessions hosted live every Saturday at 2 PM GMT / 3 PM BST / 7:30 PM IST / 10 AM ET / 7 AM PST

👉 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 - https://forms.gle/gpo1rRYdrGBrkzRo9

👉 Livestream link - https://www.youtube.com/@be-SA/streams

👉 Discord channel for communication - https://discord.gg/JkhUtxuBZf

Here are the AWS experts delivering the sessions for this cohort:

Join the upcoming cohort

If you're ready to level up your cloud career, Cohort 8 starts September 6.

Your next career breakthrough might start with a single decision to invest in yourself and connect with a community that's committed to mutual growth.

Please do spread the word about BeSA amount your friends, family and colleagues so that it reaches the people who can benefit from it.

If you have any questions, connect with the core team on LinkedIn and just ask.

BeSA Core Team:

• Parna Mehta

• Ashish Prajapati

• Prasad Rao

---

---