Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is opening a training center in Crystal City that will offer free in-person cloud computing classes to adults lacking a background in tech.
The AWS Skills Center is a 10,000-square-foot, multipurpose space at 1550 Crystal Drive designed for events and classrooms to teach cloud computing for entry level cloud roles. It also houses exhibits on the impact of Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud computing arm.
The Arlington center, located near where Amazon is building its second headquarters, will debut Tuesday. It is the company's second such facility; the first opened last year in Seattle.
“The purpose is to bring cloud computing to life for the local community,” said Kevin Kelly, Amazon Web Service's director of cloud career training programs. “Help them understand the wide array of jobs and opportunities that exist in the cloud and what do some of those training pathways look like.”
The center will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. It will offer entry level cloud-practitioner certification courses for free, along with one-on-one time with trainers that individuals can use to help find careers as cloud builders, cloud application developers, site reliability engineers and customer support associates. The courses available at the center range from an introduction to computer technology to AWS cloud essentials for business leaders.
“Our programs are focused on creating that talent pipeline, whether it’s through the skill center, AWS re/Start or some of our other programs,” said Kelly.
The entry level clouding computing jobs the company is promoting through training are roles at companies that use Amazon's cloud services, and the training is not necessarily a route to a job with Amazon.
Kelly noted Rick Armstrong, a recent graduate of AWS re/Start Associate Program, a separate 12-week cloud computing reskilling program, as an example of the opportunity the skills center and the company's training programs can provide. Armstrong spent 20 years as a restaurant manager and was laid off due during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Learning cloud computing helped him land a job as an account manager assisting clients at Herndon software company DLT Solutions.
The AWS re/Start Associate program for the D.C. area is currently being operated through training nonprofit Per Scholas. The deadline to sign up for the latest cohort is Oct. 14.
