AWS Certified Developer - Associate Practice Exam

The AWS Certified Developer Associate exam validates your ability to develop, deploy, and manage cloud applications on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. Earning this certification demonstrates your proficiency in leveraging AWS services to build scalable, secure, and cost-effective solutions.

Who Should Take This Exam?

• Software Developers
• DevOps Engineers
• Cloud Architects (focusing on development)
• IT professionals transitioning to cloud development

Prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites for taking the AWS Certified Developer Associate exam. However, a solid foundation in core programming concepts and some understanding of cloud computing principles would be beneficial. Experience working with AWS services is a plus but not mandatory.

Roles and Responsibilities

With an AWS Certified Developer Associate certification, you might qualify for roles such as:

• Cloud Developer: Developing, deploying, and maintaining cloud applications on AWS.
• AWS Developer Engineer: Designing, developing, and deploying scalable and secure applications on AWS.
• DevOps Engineer (AWS Focus): Automating infrastructure provisioning and deployment processes for AWS environments.
• Junior Cloud Architect (Development Focus): Participating in the design and development of cloud architectures on AWS, focusing on the developer perspective.

Exam Details

• Exam Duration 130 Minutes
• Exam Format Multiple Choice and Multi-Response Questions
• Exam Type Associate
• Number of Questions 65 questions
• Passing Score 70-75%

Course Outline

The AWS Developer Associate Exam evaluates skills of he candidates based on given topics - 

Module 1: Understanding the Development with AWS Services

1.1 Learn the skills to Develop code for applications hosted on AWS.

Candidate should have the -

• Knowledge of Architectural patterns (for example, event-driven, microservices, monolithic, choreography, orchestration, fanout)
• Idempotency
• Understanding differences between stateful and stateless concepts
• Understanding differences between tightly coupled and loosely coupled components
• Understanding Fault-tolerant design patterns 
• Understanding differences between synchronous and asynchronous patterns

Skills Required 

• Create a fault-tolerant and resilient applications in a programming language (Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go)
• Create extending, and maintaining APIs (response/request transformations, enforcing validation rules, overriding status codes)
• Ability to write and run unit tests in development environments (for example, using AWS Serverless Application Model [AWS SAM])
• Ability to write code to use messaging services
• Ability to write code that interacts with AWS services by using APIs and AWS SDKs
• Ability to handle data streaming by using AWS services

1.2 Learn to Develop code for AWS Lambda.

Candidate should have the -

• Knowledge of Event source mapping
• Knowledge of Stateless applications
• Knowledge of Unit testing
• Knowledge of Event-driven architecture
• Knowledge of Scalability
• Knowledge of access of private resources in VPCs from Lambda code

Skills Required

• Ability to configure Lambda functions by defining environment variables and parameters (memory, concurrency, timeout, runtime, handler, layers, extensions, triggers, destinations)
• Ability to handle the event lifecycle and errors by using code (Lambda Destinations, dead-letter queues)
• Ability to write and run test code by using AWS services and tools
• Ability to integrate Lambda functions with AWS services
• Ability to  tune Lambda functions for optimal performance

1.3 Learn to use data stores in application development.

Candidate should have the -

• Knowledge of Relational and non-relational databases
• Ability to create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations
• Knowledge of High-cardinality partition keys for balanced partition access
• Knowledge of Cloud storage options (file, object, databases)
• Knowledge of Database consistency models (strongly consistent, eventually consistent)
• Understanding of the Differences between query and scan operations
• Knowledge of Amazon DynamoDB keys and indexing
• Knowledge of Caching strategies (write-through, read-through, lazy loading, TTL)
• Knowledge of Amazon S3 tiers and lifecycle management
• Understanding differences between ephemeral and persistent data storage patterns

Skills Required

• Ability of Serializing and deserializing data to provide persistence to a data store
• Ability of using, managing, and maintaining data stores
• Ability of managing data lifecycles
• Ability of using data caching services

Module 2: Understanding the concept of Security

2.1 Implement authentication and/or authorization for applications and AWS services.

Candidate should have the -

• Knowledge of Identity federation (Security Assertion Markup Language [SAML], OpenID Connect [OIDC], Amazon Cognito)
• Knowledge of Bearer tokens (for example, JSON Web Token [JWT], OAuth, AWS Security Token Service [AWS STS])
• Knowledge of comparison of user pools and identity pools in Amazon Cognito
• Knowledge of Resource-based policies, service policies, and principal policies
• Knowledge of Role-based access control (RBAC)
• Knowledge of Application authorization that uses ACLs
• Knowledge of principle of least privilege
• Knowledge of Differences between AWS managed policies and customer-managed policies
• Knowledge of Identity and access management (IAM)

Skills Required

• Ability to use an identity provider to implement federated access (for example, Amazon Cognito, AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM])
• Ability to secure applications by using bearer tokens
• Ability to configure programmatic access to AWS
• Ability to make authenticated calls to AWS services
• Ability to assume an IAM role
• Ability to define permissions for principals

2.2 Implement encryption by using AWS services.

Candidate should have the -

• Knowledge of encryption at rest and in transit
• Knowledge of Certificate management (AWS Certificate Manager Private Certificate Authority)
• Knowledge of Key protection (for example, key rotation)
• Understanding the differences between client-side encryption and server-side encryption
• Understanding the differences between AWS managed and customer-managed AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) keys

Skills Required

• Ability to use encryption keys to encrypt or decrypt data
• Ability to generate certificates and SSH keys for development purposes
• Ability to use encryption across account boundaries
• Ability to enable and disable key rotation

2.3: Manage sensitive data in application code.

Candidate should have the -

• Data classification (personally identifiable information [PII], protected health information [PHI])
• Environment variables
• Secrets management (AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store)
• Secure credential handling

Skills Required

• Encrypting environment variables that contain sensitive data
• Using secret management services to secure sensitive data
• Sanitizing sensitive data

Module 3: Understanding Deployment

3.1 Prepare application artifacts to be deployed to AWS

Candidate should have the -

• Ways to access application configuration data (for example, AWS AppConfig, Secrets Manager, Parameter Store)
• Lambda deployment packaging, layers, and configuration options
• Git-based version control tools (for example, Git, AWS CodeCommit)
• Container images

Skills required

• Managing the dependencies of the code module (for example, environment variables, configuration files, container images) within the package
• Organizing files and a directory structure for application deployment
• Using code repositories in deployment environments
• Applying application requirements for resources (for example, memory, cores)

3.2 Test applications in development environments.

Candidate should have the -

• Features in AWS services that perform application deployment
• Integration testing that uses mock endpoints
• Lambda versions and aliases

Skills Required

• Testing deployed code by using AWS services and tools
•  Performing mock integration for APIs and resolving integration dependencies
• Testing applications by using development endpoints (for example, configuring stages in Amazon API Gateway)
• Deploying application stack updates to existing environments (for example, deploying an AWS SAM template to a different staging environment)

3.3 Automate deployment testing.

Candidate should have the -

• API Gateway stages
• Branches and actions in the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflow
• Automated software testing (for example, unit testing, mock testing)

Skills Required

• Creating application test events (for example, JSON payloads for testing Lambda, API Gateway, AWS SAM resources)
• Deploying API resources to various environments
• Creating application environments that use approved versions for integration testing (for example, Lambda aliases, container image tags, AWS Amplify branches, AWS Copilot environments)
• Implementing and deploying infrastructure as code (IaC) templates (for example, AWS SAM templates, AWS CloudFormation templates)
• Managing environments in individual AWS services (for example, differentiating between development, test, and production in API Gateway)

3.4 Deploy code by using AWS CI/CD services.

Candidate should have the -

• Git-based version control tools (for example, Git, AWS CodeCommit)
• Manual and automated approvals in AWS CodePipeline
• Access application configurations from AWS AppConfig and Secrets Manager
• CI/CD workflows that use AWS services
• Application deployment that uses AWS services and tools (for example, CloudFormation, AWS Cloud Development Kit [AWS CDK], AWS SAM, AWS CodeArtifact, Copilot, Amplify, Lambda)
• Lambda deployment packaging options
• API Gateway stages and custom domains
• Deployment strategies (for example, canary, blue/green, rolling)

Skills Required

• Updating existing IaC templates (for example, AWS SAM templates, CloudFormation templates)
• Managing application environments by using AWS services
• Deploying an application version by using deployment strategies
• Committing code to a repository to invoke build, test, and deployment actions
• Using orchestrated workflows to deploy code to different environments
• Performing application rollbacks by using existing deployment strategies
• Using labels and branches for version and release management
• Using existing runtime configurations to create dynamic deployments (for example, using staging variables from API Gateway in Lambda functions)

Module 4 - Understanding Troubleshooting and Optimization

4.1 Assist in a root cause analysis

Candidate should have the -

• Logging and monitoring systems
• Languages for log queries (for example, Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights)
• Data visualizations
• Code analysis tools
• Common HTTP error codes
• Common exceptions generated by SDKs
• Service maps in AWS X-Ray

Skills Required

• Debugging code to identify defects
• Interpreting application metrics, logs, and traces
• Querying logs to find relevant data
• Implementing custom metrics (for example, CloudWatch embedded metric format [EMF])
• Reviewing application health by using dashboards and insights
• Troubleshooting deployment failures by using service output logs

4.2 Instrument code for observability

Candidate should have the -

• Distributed tracing
• Differences between logging, monitoring, and observability
• Structured logging
• Application metrics (for example, custom, embedded, built-in)

Skills Required

• Implementing an effective logging strategy to record application behavior and state
• Implementing code that emits custom metrics
• Adding annotations for tracing services
• Implementing notification alerts for specific actions (for example, notifications about quota limits or deployment completions)
• Implementing tracing by using AWS services and tools

4.3 Optimize applications by using AWS services and features

Candidate should have the -

• Caching
• Concurrency
• Messaging services (for example, Amazon Simple Queue Service [Amazon SQS], Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS])

Skills Required

• Profiling application performance
• Determining minimum memory and compute power for an application
• Using subscription filter policies to optimize messaging
• Caching content based on request headers