AWS Certified Developer - Associate (DVA-C02) is the Associate-level certification for developers who build and deploy applications on AWS. It goes beyond choosing an architecture and asks which API your code should call, with what settings, and how the deployment should be carried out, so hands-on experience with the services through the SDK and the CLI is what decides the result.
This post is the guide to our 15-part DVA-C02 domain deep-dive series. Before getting into individual topics, it maps out the exam structure, who should take it, and where this certification sits on the AWS career path.
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Who Is DVA-C02 For?
If SAA-C03 is about drawing the blueprint of a building, DVA-C02 is about actually running the wiring and installing the equipment inside it. The questions are the decisions people who write code run into: a Lambda function's timeout, DynamoDB read consistency, how traffic shifts during a deployment.
This certification is a particularly good fit for the following people.
| Target Audience | Why It Fits | |------|------| | Back-end and full-stack developers building on AWS | Formal validation of the Lambda, DynamoDB, and API Gateway knowledge you use every day | | Developers moving to serverless | Put structure around event-driven design and service integration patterns | | DevOps and platform engineers | Understand CI/CD and deployment strategies from the developer's side; a stepping stone to DOP-C02 | | SAA-C03 holders | Round out the ability to implement a designed architecture in real code and deployments | | Junior developers and job seekers | A practical certification that demonstrates AWS development skills |
There is no prerequisite certification. AWS recommends one or more years of hands-on experience developing and maintaining applications with AWS services, but it is not required. Being comfortable in at least one programming language helps you read the code snippets and SDK calls that appear in the questions.
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Exam at a Glance
| Item | Detail | |------|------| | Exam Code | DVA-C02 | | Full Name | AWS Certified Developer - Associate | | Level | Associate | | Passing Score | 720 (scale 100–1,000) | | Questions | 65 (50 scored + 15 unscored) | | Duration | 130 minutes | | Exam Fee | $150 USD | | Validity | 3 years | | Question Types | Multiple choice, multiple response | | Languages | English, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Latin America) | | Delivery | Pearson VUE testing center or online proctored exam | | Recommended Experience | 1 or more years developing and maintaining applications on AWS (not required) |
The 15 unscored questions are there so AWS can evaluate them for future exams, and they are not identified on the exam. Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect and there is no penalty for guessing, so answer every question. Scoring is compensatory: you do not need to pass each domain, only reach 720 overall.
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Domain Breakdown
DVA-C02 is made up of four domains. The weights below are the official figures for scored content.
| Domain | Topic | Weight | Deep dives | |------|------|------|------| | Domain 1 | Development with AWS Services | 32% | 5 posts | | Domain 2 | Security | 26% | 3 posts | | Domain 3 | Deployment | 24% | 4 posts | | Domain 4 | Troubleshooting and Optimization | 18% | 3 posts |
Domain 1 (Development with AWS Services) carries the most weight at 32%. It centers on serverless building blocks such as Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, and SQS and SNS, so experience calling these services directly through the SDK translates into points. Notice too that security comes second at 26%. This is a developer exam, yet IAM roles, KMS encryption, and secrets management make up more than a quarter of it.
!DVA-C02 exam domain weight breakdown across 4 domains
Domain 1: Development with AWS Services (32%)
This domain is about writing application code and connecting it to AWS services. Serverless and event-driven patterns are at its center.
Key topics: Lambda function configuration (memory, timeout, concurrency, environment variables); event source mappings; API Gateway; asynchronous integration with SQS, SNS, EventBridge, and Kinesis; retries and exponential backoff in the AWS SDK; DynamoDB key design and indexes (GSI, LSI); ElastiCache caching strategies; Step Functions.
Exam tip: "Processing of an SQS message keeps failing and the same message is retried over and over" → configure a dead-letter queue (DLQ). "We need to query DynamoDB by an attribute that is not the partition key" → a global secondary index (GSI). For throttling errors, exponential backoff with retries is the default answer.
Related posts: Event-Driven Architecture Patterns, AWS SDK and Messaging/Streaming, Lambda Function Development, DynamoDB Data Modeling and Queries, Data Store Integration and Caching
Domain 2: Security (26%)
This domain is about implementing authentication and authorization, encryption, and the handling of sensitive data in an application.
Key topics: IAM roles and policies; STS and temporary credentials; Amazon Cognito user pools and identity pools; KMS and envelope encryption; encryption at rest and in transit; Secrets Manager and Systems Manager Parameter Store; encrypting environment variables.
Exam tip: "Handle user sign-up and sign-in" → Cognito user pool. "Give signed-in users temporary credentials to access AWS resources" → Cognito identity pool. "The database password has to be rotated automatically" → Secrets Manager.
Related posts: IAM Authentication and Cognito, Encryption Implementation and Key Management, Sensitive Data and Secrets Management
Domain 3: Deployment (24%)
This domain is about packaging an application, automating it with a pipeline, and releasing it safely.
Key topics: Preparing deployment artifacts; AWS SAM and CloudFormation; CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, and CodePipeline; Lambda versions and aliases; API Gateway stages; deployment strategies (all-at-once, rolling, blue/green, canary); Elastic Beanstalk deployment policies; integration test environments.
Exam tip: "Send only 10% of traffic to the new version first" → weighted Lambda aliases or a CodeDeploy canary deployment. "We must be able to switch back to the previous environment immediately if something goes wrong" → blue/green deployment. If Elastic Beanstalk must have no downtime, rule out All at once.
Related posts: Deployment Artifacts and Configuration Management, CI/CD Pipeline Configuration, Test Automation and Dev Environments, Deployment Strategies and Release Management
Domain 4: Troubleshooting and Optimization (18%)
This domain is about finding problems in a running application and improving its performance and cost.
Key topics: CloudWatch Logs and Logs Insights; metrics and alarms; custom metrics; AWS X-Ray tracing and instrumentation; structured logging; Lambda concurrency and cold starts; memory settings and performance; caching and query optimization.
Exam tip: "See where a request is delayed as it passes through several services" → AWS X-Ray. "Search and aggregate specific patterns in logs" → CloudWatch Logs Insights. Raising a Lambda function's memory raises its CPU as well, so a shorter run time can actually bring the cost down.
Related posts: Analyzing Logs, Metrics, and Traces - CloudWatch, X-Ray, Debugging, Observability Code Instrumentation, Lambda and Application Performance Optimization
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Where DVA-C02 Fits in the AWS Certification Path
The AWS developer path climbs from Foundational to Associate to Professional. DVA-C02 sits in the middle.
| Category | CLF-C02 | DVA-C02 | DOP-C02 | |------|------|------|------| | Level | Foundational | Associate | Professional | | Full Name | Cloud Practitioner | Developer - Associate | DevOps Engineer - Professional | | Main Audience | Any role, including non-technical | Developers who build and deploy applications on AWS | Engineers who design deployment automation and operations at scale | | Duration | 90 minutes | 130 minutes | 180 minutes | | Questions | 65 | 65 | 75 | | Exam Fee | $100 | $150 | $300 |
The deployment and observability knowledge you build for DVA-C02 extends to organization-wide automation in the higher-level certification. To continue on the developer path, move on to the DOP-C02 guide; to round out the architecture design view, see the SAA-C03 guide. If, on the other hand, the AWS service names themselves are unfamiliar, build the foundation first with the Cloud Practitioner guide.
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Study Roadmap for Beginners
A step-by-step study order for people learning AWS development for the first time.
Step 1 (Weeks 1–2): Learn the serverless core. Build a simple API yourself with Lambda, API Gateway, and DynamoDB. The important part is calling it through the SDK and the CLI, not only the console.
Step 2 (Weeks 3–4): Integration and data. Connect functions asynchronously with SQS, SNS, and EventBridge, and apply DynamoDB indexes and caching.
Step 3 (Weeks 5–6): Security. Give the functions least-privilege IAM roles, add authentication with Cognito, and move secrets into Secrets Manager or Parameter Store.
Step 4 (Weeks 7–8): Deployment, observability, and practice questions. Deploy the stack with SAM or CloudFormation, automate it with CodePipeline, and trace it with X-Ray and CloudWatch. Finish with the official practice question set on AWS Skill Builder to find your weak domains.
The most common mistake is studying only by clicking through the console. DVA-C02 asks about things you only meet in code, such as API names, parameters, error codes, and limits, so doing the same task once more through the SDK or the CLI is the most effective preparation.
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Exam Day Checklist
You take the exam at a Pearson VUE testing center or as an online proctored exam. Before you book, get used to the wording and length of the questions with the official practice question set on AWS Skill Builder.