Passed the AZ-104: Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate

I'm glad to share that I've earned the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) certification.

After more than two decades working across QA, test automation, and solution delivery in Banking, FinTech, Government, and Retail environments, I've been deliberately expanding into cloud infrastructure and administration. AZ-104 was the natural next step — it validates the skills needed to implement, manage, and monitor an organization's Microsoft Azure environment, including identity, governance, storage, compute, and virtual networking.

Why this certification mattered to me

Modern QA and automation work increasingly lives in the cloud — test environments, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code all assume a working knowledge of how cloud resources are provisioned and managed. Rather than treating Azure as a black box that "just runs the pipeline," I wanted a solid, certified foundation in:

• Managing Azure identities, governance, and subscriptions
• Implementing and managing storage
• Deploying and managing Azure compute resources
• Configuring and managing virtual networking
• Monitoring and maintaining Azure resources

The credential

• Certification: Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate
• Earned on: August 2, 2026
• Expires on: August 2, 2027
• Credential ID: 2706855E321BF90

You can verify the credential directly here: Verify my AZ-104 certification

What's next

This certification builds on my existing ISTQB Foundation and Advanced Test Analyst (CTAL-TA) credentials, and fits into a broader plan to strengthen my cloud and platform engineering skill set alongside my QA and test architecture background. I'll be looking at where this takes me next — whether that's deeper Azure specialization or bringing cloud-native testing practices into my current work.

If you're on a similar journey combining QA/test leadership with cloud skills, I'd love to hear how you're approaching it.