How I cleared my AWS certified developer — Associate exam

Amazon Web Services changed the way how we do deploying and managing our applications in a server. They came up with this disruptive idea in 2006 and it took a very long time for competitors to respond with a similar product. After 14 years AWS still leads the market and it is way ahead of its competitors.

AWS provides a complete end to end solution for various components that we need in our application and it provides elasticity and high availability. So I have decided to explore AWS from a developer’s perspective. So I went for AWS certified developer associate certification.

This certification is intended for people who are in a developer role and AWS recommends you to have 1–2 years of hands on experience for getting this certification. Evidently, not many of us who appear for the certification has the recommended experience. Only way to get around that is by practicing, not just learning the concepts.

Okay lets get down to the details. Let us look at the breakdown of topics on which the certification exam is based upon.

Udemy Course by Stephane Maarek

I started my AWS journey with a Udemy[https://www.udemy.com/] course. As many of you already knows, there are some excellent courses for different AWS certifications by Stephane Maarek which are complete packages. I signed up for his developer associate course [https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-developer-associate-dva-c01/].

It is a 29 hour long course with a lot of session wise practice exams and covers all the topics in depth which are necessary for the certification. I would highly recommend you to take this same course.

Few tips to keep in mind while taking the Udemy course

1. Do not try to finish all the topics at once. Please make sure to practice in the AWS management console at the end of every topics to get a clear understanding about it
2. Take notes. Make sure to jot down important points as you go through each video slide. It will help you while revising for the exam
3. Make sure to have a clear understanding about the foundational topics like Identity and Access Management, EC2, Auto Scaling Group, Elastic Load Balancing, S3, Route53, RDS, EFS, EBS before starting with advanced topics
4. Since this exam tests you on AWS development skills it is important for you to have a solid ground on topics like ElasticBeanStalk, Cloud Formation, CI-CD, Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, RDS, Cognito, SQS, SNS, Kinesis streams, ECS, AWS SDK & CLI.
5. AWS will only test you on a high level on monitoring and logging topics like CloudWatch, CloudTrail, X-Ray etc.
6. AWS asks a lot of questions on security. So make sure to understand KMS in depth and topics like envelope encryption, S3 encryption and on how to make the encryption keys
7. In the area of containers, focus on ECS & Fargate. Even though AWS has a Kubernetes service(EKS), exam will not be testing you on this (atleast for now) since this is a newer offering

Hands on in AWS

Once you are done with the Udemy, make sure to dedicate some time for practicing in AWS management console. It helps you in visually understanding what you have learnt throughout the course.

AWS FAQs and Whitepapers [https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certification-prep/]

Do not spend too much time but just skim through various AWS whitepapers and FAQs as they have mentioned in their website under the developer associate exam guide.

Practice tests

AWS certification exams are multiple choice questions and it will be of scenario based. They will be asking 65 questions and you will have 130 minutes to complete the exam which is a lot in my opinion.

Make sure to spend enough time on mock exams to see where you stand before jumping straight into the main exam. If you are not able to clear the mock exams, then try to spend more time on the topics before registering.

When it comes to practice / mock exams I would recommend 2 courses on Udemy

1. Practice exam sets by Neal Davis (6 practice tests)[https://sapient.udemy.com/course/aws-developer-associate-practice-exams/]
2. Practice exam sets by Stephane Maarek (5 practice tests) [https://sapient.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-developer-associate-practice-tests-dva-c01/]

I would recommend to prioritise Neal Davis practice exams and then take Stephane’s exam.

Make sure that you are able to score atleast more than 75–80% in the mock exams before appearing for the main one.

Exam cost & Guidelines

Associate level exams costs $150 and you will end up paying around $177 including tax and service fee. And it does not include a retake. It means, if you are not able to clear the exam you have to wait atleast 3 months before retaking it and need to pay the full amount again.

You can choose to give the exam from your home or by visiting a test centre. In case if you are choosing to give the exam from your home, make sure you have a stable internet connection and a calm environment. A proctor will be monitoring you the entire time and you need to send photos of your room from where you are taking the exam before starting it. Just before the exam gets started, you will be receiving a video call from the proctor and you will be asked to show your room around and you also will be asked to show that you are not wearing any smart watches.

Once you are done with the exam, while submitting you will be immediately notified whether you have cleared the exam or not. But AWS could take up to 2–5 days for issuing your certificate and marks. Luckily for me, I received it on the same day.

It was fun preparing for this exam and you will also enjoy it.

All the best!!!!