🟠 Amazon AWS · Developer Associate

AWS DVA-C02 Complete Course

Master serverless development on AWS and pass the Developer Associate exam. Covers Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, SQS/SNS, Cognito, KMS, CodePipeline, CloudFormation, X-Ray, and everything the 2025 blueprint tests.

8 modules ~35 hours intermediate 60 practice questions free · no signup

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DVA-C02Exam code

65Exam questions

720 / 1000Passing score

130 minExam duration

$300Exam fee (USD)

3 yearsValid period

🎧

Study on the go — CertQuests Podcast

Reinforce Lambda patterns, DynamoDB design, and CI/CD concepts while commuting. New episodes covering DVA-C02 topics drop weekly.

▶ Listen on Spotify

About the exam

Why earn the AWS Developer Associate?

DVA-C02 is the go-to certification for developers building cloud-native and serverless applications on AWS. It validates that you can architect, build, deploy, and debug production-grade AWS workloads — not just use the console.

Proves hands-on AWS development skills: Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, SQS/SNS
Validates CI/CD knowledge: CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, Elastic Beanstalk
Demonstrates security practices: IAM, Cognito, KMS, Secrets Manager
Opens doors to senior developer and cloud engineer roles — median salary $130k+
Natural next step after Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) or alongside SAA-C03
Valid for 3 years; earns AWS re:Certify continuing education credits

Exam strategy: DVA-C02 is heavily scenario-based. For each question, eliminate answers that describe actions you wouldn't do in production (e.g., hardcoding credentials, using root IAM user, synchronous polling in hot loops). AWS favors managed services and least-privilege IAM over DIY solutions.

Exam blueprint

DVA-C02 exam domains

Four domains weighted by importance. Development is the largest — make sure Lambda, DynamoDB, and API Gateway are your strongest areas.

Domain 1 — Development with AWS Services 32%

Domain 2 — Security 26%

Domain 3 — Deployment 24%

Domain 4 — Troubleshooting & Optimization 18%

Course content

8 modules · ~35 hours

Each module focuses on an exam domain cluster. Work through them in order or jump to your weak areas.

AWS Lambda — Deep Dive

Lambda is the heart of DVA-C02. This module covers the full Lambda lifecycle: cold starts and provisioned concurrency, execution roles, environment variables, layers, VPC integration, event source mappings (SQS, Kinesis, DynamoDB Streams), synchronous vs asynchronous invocations, retries and DLQs, Lambda Destinations, concurrency limits, and traffic shifting with aliases and versions.

cold-start provisioned-concurrency layers event-source-mapping async-retries dlq vpc-integration aliases-versions

~5h

API Gateway — REST, HTTP & WebSocket APIs

Build and secure APIs the AWS way. Covers REST vs HTTP API differences, Lambda proxy vs custom integration, request/response mapping templates, stage variables, caching and throttling, usage plans and API keys, Lambda authorizers, Cognito User Pool authorizers, CORS configuration, canary deployments, and WebSocket APIs for real-time bidirectional communication.

proxy-integration caching throttling lambda-authorizer cognito-authorizer websocket stage-variables cors

~4h

DynamoDB — Design, Query & Optimization

DynamoDB is the most-tested data store on DVA-C02. Master partition key and sort key design, avoiding hot partitions, LSI vs GSI, Query vs Scan and when to use each, ProjectionExpression, ConditionExpression, optimistic locking with version attributes, DynamoDB Streams, TTL, transactions (TransactGetItems/TransactWriteItems), DAX for caching, and on-demand vs provisioned capacity.

partition-key-design gsi-lsi query-vs-scan optimistic-locking streams transactions dax ttl

~5h

🎧

Halfway through? Reinforce DynamoDB and Lambda patterns by listening to the CertQuests podcast — concise audio episodes covering exactly these topics for your commute.

▶ Open Spotify

Messaging — SQS, SNS, Kinesis & EventBridge

Decoupled event-driven architectures are a core DVA-C02 topic. Learn when to use SQS (durable queuing), SNS (fan-out pub/sub), Kinesis Data Streams (ordered high-throughput streaming), and EventBridge (event routing with schema registry). Key concepts: SQS visibility timeout and DLQ, FIFO vs Standard queues, SNS subscription filters, Kinesis shard management and Lambda parallelization factor, and EventBridge rules and targets.

sqs-visibility-timeout dlq fifo-queue sns-fan-out kinesis-shards kinesis-parallelization eventbridge-rules

~4h

Security — Cognito, IAM, KMS & Secrets Manager

Security is 26% of DVA-C02. This module covers Cognito User Pools vs Identity Pools and when to use each, ID token vs Access token vs Refresh token, fine-grained DynamoDB/S3 access with identity pool policy variables, IAM roles for Lambda and cross-account access, resource-based policies, KMS envelope encryption with GenerateDataKey, Secrets Manager automatic rotation, SSM Parameter Store SecureString, and S3 presigned URLs.

cognito-user-pools cognito-identity-pools jwt-tokens kms-envelope-encryption secrets-manager-rotation ssm-securestring presigned-url resource-based-policy

~5h

CI/CD — CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy & CodePipeline

The deployment domain (24%) focuses on AWS-native CI/CD. Learn CodePipeline stage architecture (Source → Build → Deploy), CodeBuild buildspec.yml phases, compute types, and artifact caching, CodeDeploy deployment strategies for EC2/ECS/Lambda (AllAtOnce, Rolling, Blue/Green, Canary, Linear), AppSpec hooks (BeforeInstall, AfterInstall, ValidateService), CloudWatch alarm rollback, and CodeArtifact for private package management.

codepipeline-stages codebuild-buildspec codedeploy-strategies blue-green canary-linear appsec-hooks codeartifact rollback

~5h

Infrastructure as Code — CloudFormation, SAM & CDK

Every AWS developer needs IaC skills. This module covers CloudFormation template anatomy (Parameters, Mappings, Conditions, Resources, Outputs), Change Sets for safe updates, cross-stack references with Exports/ImportValue, custom resources, DeletionPolicy (Retain, Snapshot, Delete), and stack failure behavior. Then SAM: Transform declaration, AWS::Serverless::Function, sam local invoke/start-api for local testing. Finally CDK: L1/L2/L3 constructs, cdk synth/deploy, and why CDK synthesizes to CloudFormation.

change-sets cross-stack-references custom-resources deletion-policy sam-transform sam-local cdk-constructs

~4h

Observability & Optimization — X-Ray, CloudWatch & Step Functions

The troubleshooting domain (18%) demands deep observability skills. Master AWS X-Ray: active tracing, segments/subsegments, annotations (indexed, filterable) vs metadata (not indexed), sampling rules, and capturing AWS SDK calls with captureAWSv3Client. CloudWatch: Lambda standard metrics (Duration, Errors, Throttles, ConcurrentExecutions), custom metrics via PutMetricData, Log Insights query syntax, and alarms for automated rollbacks. Step Functions: state machine design patterns (sequential, parallel, wait, error catch/retry), Express vs Standard workflows, and when to use Step Functions vs SQS for orchestration.

x-ray-annotations x-ray-sampling cloudwatch-metrics custom-metrics log-insights step-functions parallel-state error-handling

~3h

Exam quick-reference

High-frequency DVA-C02 concepts

These patterns appear repeatedly on the exam. Knowing them cold will save minutes per question.

Lambda + SQS: Set the SQS visibility timeout to at least 6× the Lambda function timeout. Use a Dead Letter Queue (DLQ) to preserve messages that fail after maxReceiveCount attempts.

DynamoDB hot partitions: If total consumed capacity is under the provisioned limit but you still see throttling, the problem is a hot partition key. Design keys with high cardinality (random suffix, user ID, UUID) — not dates or status values.

API Gateway 502 errors: With Lambda proxy integration, your function MUST return { "statusCode": 200, "headers": {}, "body": "..." }. Any other shape causes a 502 Bad Gateway.

X-Ray annotations vs metadata: Annotations are indexed — use them for values you'll filter on (userId, orderId). Metadata is not indexed — use it for large debugging payloads. If the question says "filter traces by X", the answer is annotations.

Lambda VPC + AWS services: Lambda in a VPC loses internet access. Without a NAT Gateway or VPC Endpoints, it can't reach DynamoDB, S3, or other AWS public endpoints. This is a very common exam trap.

CodeDeploy Lambda deployments: Canary10Percent5Minutes shifts 10% of traffic to the new version for 5 minutes, then all traffic. Linear10PercentEvery1Minute shifts 10% per minute over 10 minutes. Both support CloudWatch alarm rollback.

Cognito tokens: Access token → API authorization. ID token → user identity claims. Refresh token → get new Access/ID tokens. Never send the Refresh token to your API.

CloudFormation custom resources: Your Lambda function MUST PUT a JSON response to the pre-signed ResponseURL in the event. If it doesn't, the stack waits up to 1 hour then fails.

Study plan

Pass DVA-C02 in 6 weeks

A structured week-by-week plan for working developers who can dedicate 5–6 hours per week.

Week 1: Module 1 (Lambda) + Module 2 (API Gateway). Build a simple REST API with Lambda and test locally with SAM.
Week 2: Module 3 (DynamoDB). Design a table schema from scratch, practice Query vs Scan, implement optimistic locking.
Week 3: Module 4 (SQS/SNS/Kinesis). Set up an SQS-triggered Lambda with a DLQ, implement an SNS fan-out pattern.
Week 4: Module 5 (Security). Configure Cognito User Pools, add a Cognito authorizer to API Gateway, rotate a Secrets Manager secret.
Week 5: Module 6 (CI/CD) + Module 7 (IaC). Build a CodePipeline: CodeCommit → CodeBuild → CodeDeploy to Lambda with Canary strategy.
Week 6: Module 8 (Observability) + full practice test. Review wrong answers. Listen to CertQuests podcast episodes for topic reinforcement. Sit the exam.

Hands-on practice matters: DVA-C02 tests real scenarios, not memorisation. AWS Free Tier covers Lambda (1M requests/month), DynamoDB (25 GB), API Gateway (1M calls), and CodeBuild (100 build-minutes). Build the things you're studying.

🎧

Keep the momentum — listen while you code

The CertQuests podcast covers Lambda edge cases, DynamoDB design anti-patterns, and CI/CD war stories — all mapped to DVA-C02 exam objectives. Perfect for study sessions when you can't be at a screen.

▶ Listen on Spotify

Related certifications

Continue your AWS journey

DVA-C02 pairs well with these certifications — they share significant topic overlap.

BEGINNER

AWS CLF-C02

Cloud Practitioner — great foundation before DVA-C02

INTERMEDIATE

AWS SAA-C03

Solutions Architect — architecture focus, same AWS services

INTERMEDIATE

Terraform Associate

IaC complement to CloudFormation knowledge

ADVANCED

CKA

Kubernetes Administrator — natural next step for DevOps