DVA-C02 Exam Guide: Format, Cost, Domains, and How to Prepare
The AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) validates that you can build, deploy, and debug applications on AWS — SDK usage, Lambda, DynamoDB, APIs, CI/CD, and application security. It's aimed at developers with roughly a year of hands-on AWS experience.
This guide summarizes official exam details — confirm the current version on the AWS certification page before booking.
Exam format at a glance
- 65 questions — multiple choice and multiple response
- 130 minutes — about 2 minutes per question
- $150 USD
- Passing score: 720 on a scaled range of 100–1000 (compensatory scoring)
- Pearson VUE testing center or online proctored exam
The four domains
- Domain 1: Development with AWS Services — 32% (SDKs, serverless compute, APIs, data stores, messaging)
- Domain 2: Security — 26% (IAM in code, Cognito, encryption, secrets)
- Domain 3: Deployment — 24% (CI/CD, IaC, deployment strategies, containers)
- Domain 4: Troubleshooting and Optimization — 18% (X-Ray, CloudWatch, caching, performance)
What the exam actually tests
DVA-C02 is API-and-service-behavior heavy. The questions rarely ask you to recall syntax — they describe a scenario and ask which service feature or configuration achieves the outcome. The recurring themes: Lambda limits and concurrency controls, DynamoDB capacity/streams/keys, SQS visibility timeouts and FIFO semantics, Cognito user pools vs identity pools, CodeDeploy strategies, and X-Ray tracing.
Multiple-response questions ('Select TWO') are common — partial answers score zero, so elimination skills matter as much as recall.
A realistic prep plan
Hands-on beats reading here — write a small serverless app (Lambda + API Gateway + DynamoDB) and break it on purpose: hit a visibility-timeout bug, trigger a concurrency throttle, deploy with a canary config. Budget 4–8 weeks depending on experience.
- Weeks 1–2: Domain 1 — Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SQS/SNS/EventBridge
- Week 3: Domain 2 — IAM roles in code, Cognito, KMS, Secrets Manager
- Week 4: Domain 3 — CodeBuild/CodePipeline/CodeDeploy, SAM, Beanstalk
- Week 5: Domain 4 — X-Ray, CloudWatch, DAX/ElastiCache, provisioned concurrency
- Final week: timed practice sets and review every missed explanation