AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02)
Goal: Validate your ability to develop, deploy, debug, and maintain cloud-based applications using AWS services.
🎯 Exam At a Glance
| Property | Detail |
|---|---|
| Exam Code | DVA-C02 |
| Level | Associate |
| Duration | 130 minutes |
| Questions | 65 (scored) + ~15 unscored (not marked) |
| Format | Multiple choice, Multiple response |
| Passing Score | 720 / 1000 |
| Price | $150 USD |
| Validity | 3 years |
| Prerequisites | 1+ year of AWS development experience recommended |
📊 Exam Domains & Weighting
| # | Domain | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Development with AWS Services | 32% |
| 2 | Security | 26% |
| 3 | Deployment | 24% |
| 4 | Troubleshooting and Optimization | 18% |
Domain 1 + 2 = 58% of the exam. Master Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, IAM, Cognito, and KMS first.
🗺️ Study Roadmap
Phase 1 — Foundations (Week 1-2)
- IAM & Security Policies — roles, policies, STS
- Cognito — User Pools vs Identity Pools
- KMS & Encryption
- Secrets Manager & Parameter Store
Phase 2 — Core Compute & APIs (Week 3-4)
- Lambda — triggers, invocation types, concurrency
- API Gateway — REST vs HTTP vs WebSocket
- Elastic Beanstalk — deployment modes
- ECS & ECR
Phase 3 — Data & Storage (Week 5-6)
- S3 — storage classes, versioning, encryption, presigned URLs
- DynamoDB — partition keys, indexes, Streams, DAX
- ElastiCache — Redis vs Memcached
Phase 4 — Messaging & Integration (Week 7)
- SQS — standard vs FIFO, visibility timeout, DLQ
- SNS — fan-out pattern
- Kinesis — Data Streams vs Firehose
- Step Functions
Phase 5 — CI/CD & Monitoring (Week 8)
- CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CodePipeline
- CloudFormation & SAM
- CloudWatch — Logs, Metrics, Alarms
- X-Ray
🏗️ Key AWS Services for DVA-C02
Compute Lambda · Elastic Beanstalk · ECS/ECR · EC2
API API Gateway · AppSync
Storage S3 · EFS · EBS
Database DynamoDB · RDS · ElastiCache
Messaging SQS · SNS · EventBridge · Kinesis
Security IAM · Cognito · KMS · Secrets Manager · SSM
CI/CD CodeCommit · CodeBuild · CodeDeploy · CodePipeline
IaC CloudFormation · SAM · CDK
Observability CloudWatch · X-Ray · CloudTrail
Orchestration Step Functions
📚 External Study Resources
Official AWS
| Resource | Link |
|---|---|
| Exam Guide (PDF) | Download |
| Sample Questions | AWS Training |
| AWS Skill Builder | skillbuilder.aws |
| AWS Free Tier | aws.amazon.com/free |
| AWS Workshops | workshops.aws |
Top Courses
| Resource | Notes |
|---|---|
| Stephane Maarek (Udemy) | 🌟 Best overall — covers every topic |
| A Cloud Guru | Good for beginners |
| TutorialsDojo Practice Exams | Best practice tests — very exam-like |
| Whizlabs | Extra practice questions |
| freeCodeCamp YouTube | Free full-length course |
Practice Exam Platforms
- TutorialsDojo — highly recommended, closest to real exam
- Whizlabs
- AWS Official Practice Exam (2 free via Skill Builder)
- Examtopics — use with caution, verify answers
Java/Spring Specific
Since you use Java + Spring, pay special attention to:
💡 General Exam Strategy
For "select 2" or "select 3" questions, eliminate wrong answers first. There are no partial scores — you need all correct choices.
AWS loves to hide keywords: most cost-effective, least operational overhead, highly available, serverless. These narrow the correct answer dramatically.
| Keyword | Think of |
|---|---|
| Serverless | Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, API Gateway |
| Decoupling | SQS, SNS, EventBridge |
| Real-time streaming | Kinesis |
| Cache | ElastiCache (Redis/Memcached) or DAX |
| Secrets | Secrets Manager or Parameter Store |
| Tracing | X-Ray |
| Audit logs | CloudTrail |
| Blue/Green deploy | CodeDeploy or Beanstalk |
🧪 Practice Questions — Overview Level
These questions test broad exam knowledge. Detailed questions are in each topic page.
Q1. You have 65 questions and 130 minutes. How much average time do you have per question?
Details
Answer
2 minutes per question. Flag hard questions and come back. Never leave blanks — there's no penalty for wrong answers.Q2. Which domain has the highest weighting in the DVA-C02 exam?
Details
Answer
Domain 1: Development with AWS Services (32%). Focus heavily on Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, and API Gateway.Q3. A developer needs to pick between storing application secrets or database credentials. Which AWS service is purpose-built for automatic rotation of database credentials?