AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) Practice Exam
Cover all four DVA-C02 domains — Development with AWS Services, Security, Deployment, and Troubleshooting and Optimization — with objective-mapped, scenario-based practice questions, immediate feedback in Learn mode, and full timed simulation in Exam mode.
Start 24-hour free trial →DVA-C02 exam at a glance
- Vendor
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Exam code
- DVA-C02
- Certification
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate
- Level
- Associate
- Blueprint
- DVA-C02 exam guide; released February 2023 (current edition; replaced DVA-C01)
- Format
- 65 questions (50 scored + 15 unscored); multiple-choice and multiple-response
- Duration
- 130 minutes
- Passing score
- 720 on a scaled range of 100–1000 (pass/fail, compensatory scoring)
- Delivery
- Pearson VUE test center or online proctored
- Recommended experience
- At least 1 year of hands-on experience developing applications with AWS services (recommended, not required)
- Cost (USD)
- $150 USD (50% discount voucher available after any prior AWS certification)
- Validity
- 3 years; recertify by passing the current exam or a higher-level AWS certification
- Languages
- Offered in multiple languages including English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese (verify current list with AWS)
Source: AWS — DVA-C02 Exam Guide (domains & weightings). Verify current details with AWS before scheduling.
About the AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification
AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) is AWS’s associate-level credential for people who build on AWS. It validates your ability to develop, deploy, secure, and debug cloud-native applications using AWS SDKs, APIs, the CLI, and core developer services. The headline difference from Solutions Architect Associate is emphasis: DVA-C02 rewards implementation and troubleshooting judgment — how a Lambda function behaves, what a DynamoDB call returns, how an IAM policy evaluates — far more than high-level architecture theory.
DVA-C02 replaced DVA-C01 in February 2023, refreshing the service coverage around serverless and event-driven patterns. Its heaviest area is Development with AWS Services (32%), centered on Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, and the SDKs. Security (26%) is a close second and is notoriously detail-heavy — IAM policy evaluation, encryption with KMS, and handling secrets. For the deployment domain’s CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code concepts, see the DevOps guide in our Learning Hub.
Every PowerKram practice question maps to one of the four current DVA-C02 domains and links to the specific AWS documentation page it was derived from, so your weak spots become a focused reading list rather than a guess.
DVA-C02 exam domains and weights
Four domains, with Development with AWS Services the single heaviest area. The weightings are AWS’s own; because scoring is compensatory, you pass on the overall scaled score rather than needing a minimum in each domain. Plan your study time roughly in proportion to these weights.
Writing code for applications and AWS Lambda; using data stores such as DynamoDB; working with AWS SDKs, the CLI, and service APIs; and building event-driven, microservices, and serverless patterns.
Implementing authentication and authorization (IAM, Amazon Cognito); encryption with AWS services (AWS KMS); and managing sensitive data and secrets in application code (AWS Secrets Manager, Systems Manager Parameter Store).
Preparing application artifacts; testing in development environments; automating deployment with CI/CD (CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy); and deploying code using AWS CloudFormation, the SAM CLI, and Elastic Beanstalk.
Assisting in root-cause analysis; instrumenting code for observability (Amazon CloudWatch, AWS X-Ray); and optimizing applications for performance, cost, and reliability using AWS features and best practices.
Source: AWS DVA-C02 Exam Guide — content domains and weightings. Weightings indicate relative exam emphasis; some sections carry more questions than others.
Who DVA-C02 is for
AWS positions Developer – Associate for people who write and ship application code on AWS. The audience is developer-centric:
- Software and application developers who build cloud-native apps on AWS and want a recognized credential validating hands-on service knowledge.
- Backend and full-stack engineers working with Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, and the AWS SDKs who need to prove implementation depth.
- DevOps-adjacent engineers who deploy and troubleshoot applications and want to formalize their AWS development and CI/CD skills.
- Solutions Architect Associate holders broadening from design into build-and-operate territory.
AWS recommends about a year of hands-on AWS development experience. If cloud fundamentals are still new, the Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) is a useful starting point, and many candidates pair DVA-C02 with the Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) for a well-rounded associate base. The natural professional next step is the DevOps Engineer – Professional (DOP-C02), which also serves as automatic recertification. For the roles this credential supports — with skills, tools, and salary ranges — see the Developer career path and where AWS development skills lead.
What this DVA-C02 practice exam delivers
Learn mode
Get the correct answer, the explanation, and a direct link to the exact AWS documentation page each question was derived from — immediately after each question. Best for the security and troubleshooting areas, where service-behavior detail (IAM evaluation, X-Ray tracing) is the main testing pattern.
Exam mode
65 questions, 130-minute timer — the real DVA-C02 format. Build pacing for the verbose, scenario-based questions and the multiple-response items that tell you how many to select.
Source-linked explanations
Every answer cites the exact AWS page (docs.aws.amazon.com) the question was built from — so you can verify service behavior and dig deeper, not just memorize.
Score by DVA-C02 domain
Results break down by the four blueprint domains — Development, Security, Deployment, and Troubleshooting and Optimization — so practice tells you exactly which area to revisit.
Sample DVA-C02 practice questions
Ten free questions across the four current DVA-C02 domains, with full explanations and source links to the AWS pages each is derived from. The complete bank is available with the 24-hour trial.
A developer needs a compute option to run a short, event-driven function in response to an S3 upload, with no servers to manage and per-millisecond billing. Which AWS service fits?
- AWS Lambda
- Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk with a load balancer
- Amazon Lightsail instance
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — AWS Lambda. Lambda runs code in response to events (such as an S3 object-created event) with no servers to manage and billing based on requests and execution duration — the described serverless, event-driven pattern.
Why not the others: EC2 Auto Scaling (B), Elastic Beanstalk (C), and Lightsail (D) all involve provisioning and managing servers or environments, so they are not the no-server, event-driven fit.
Source: AWS — What is AWS Lambda? → Further reading: PowerKram — DevOps and serverless delivery →An application needs a fully managed NoSQL database with single-digit millisecond latency at any scale for a serverless backend. Which AWS service is the standard choice?
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon Redshift
- Amazon Neptune
Show answer & explanation
Correct: B — Amazon DynamoDB. DynamoDB is AWS’s fully managed, serverless NoSQL database delivering consistent single-digit millisecond latency at scale — the go-to data store for serverless and high-throughput developer workloads.
Why not the others: RDS (A) is relational; Redshift (C) is a data warehouse for analytics; Neptune (D) is a graph database. None matches the managed NoSQL, low-latency requirement.
Source: AWS — What is Amazon DynamoDB? →A developer wants to expose a Lambda-backed REST API to clients, with request throttling, authorization, and stage management handled by a managed service. Which AWS service provides this?
- Amazon CloudFront only
- Elastic Load Balancing (Classic Load Balancer)
- Amazon API Gateway
- Amazon Route 53
Show answer & explanation
Correct: C — Amazon API Gateway. API Gateway is a fully managed service for creating, publishing, securing, throttling, and versioning REST (and HTTP/WebSocket) APIs, and it integrates directly with Lambda — exactly the described need.
Why not the others: CloudFront (A) is a CDN; a Classic Load Balancer (B) distributes traffic but does not manage API authorization, throttling, and stages; Route 53 (D) is DNS.
Source: AWS — What is Amazon API Gateway? →In AWS IAM policy evaluation, a user has one policy that allows an action and another that explicitly denies it. What is the result?
- The allow wins because it was attached first
- Access is granted because any allow overrides a deny
- The two cancel out and AWS prompts for confirmation
- Access is denied — an explicit deny always overrides an allow
Show answer & explanation
Correct: D — access is denied; an explicit deny always overrides. IAM evaluation logic is: an explicit deny takes precedence over any allow. The order is explicit deny > explicit allow > implicit (default) deny — a heavily tested DVA-C02 security detail.
Why not the others: attachment order (A) is irrelevant; an allow never overrides an explicit deny (B); IAM does not prompt for confirmation (C) — it simply denies.
Source: AWS — What is IAM? → Further reading: PowerKram — secure delivery practices →A web and mobile app needs managed user sign-up, sign-in, and access control, including federated identity and JSON Web Tokens, without building an auth system from scratch. Which AWS service fits?
- AWS Certificate Manager
- Amazon Cognito
- AWS Shield
- Amazon Inspector
Show answer & explanation
Correct: B — Amazon Cognito. Cognito provides user pools for sign-up/sign-in and identity pools for federated access, issuing tokens (including JWTs) — the standard managed authentication and authorization service for app developers.
Why not the others: Certificate Manager (A) handles TLS certificates; Shield (C) is DDoS protection; Inspector (D) is vulnerability assessment. None provides user authentication.
Source: AWS — What is Amazon Cognito? →A developer must encrypt data at rest and centrally manage the cryptographic keys, including rotation and access policies, across AWS services. Which service is designed for this?
- Amazon Macie
- AWS Config
- Amazon GuardDuty
- AWS Key Management Service (KMS)
Show answer & explanation
Correct: D — AWS KMS. KMS creates and controls encryption keys, integrates with most AWS services for encryption at rest, and manages key policies and rotation — the central key-management service DVA-C02 expects for encryption tasks.
Why not the others: Macie (A) discovers sensitive data in S3; Config (B) tracks resource configuration; GuardDuty (C) is threat detection. None manages cryptographic keys.
Source: AWS — What is AWS KMS? →A team wants to define and deploy their serverless application’s Lambda functions, APIs, and DynamoDB tables as code using a simplified template, then deploy it repeatably. Which AWS approach fits best?
- Manually creating each resource in the console
- AWS CloudFormation with the AWS SAM (Serverless Application Model)
- Copying resources between accounts by hand
- Emailing a deployment runbook to each engineer
Show answer & explanation
Correct: B — CloudFormation with AWS SAM. SAM is an open-source framework built on CloudFormation that uses a simplified template syntax for serverless resources (functions, APIs, tables), enabling repeatable infrastructure-as-code deployment — the intended DVA-C02 deployment pattern.
Why not the others: manual console work (A), hand-copying (C), and an emailed runbook (D) are all manual and not repeatable infrastructure-as-code.
Source: AWS — What is AWS CloudFormation? → Further reading: PowerKram — infrastructure as code & CI/CD →A microservice needs to decouple producers from consumers by placing messages on a fully managed queue so work can be processed asynchronously and retried. Which AWS service fits?
- Amazon SQS
- Amazon CloudWatch Logs
- AWS Step Functions state export
- Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — Amazon SQS. Simple Queue Service is a fully managed message queue that decouples producers and consumers, enabling asynchronous processing, buffering, and retries — a core developer integration pattern on DVA-C02.
Why not the others: CloudWatch Logs (B) stores logs; Step Functions (C) orchestrates workflows but the option described is not a queue; S3 Transfer Acceleration (D) speeds uploads. None is a managed message queue.
Source: AWS — What is Amazon SQS? →A developer needs to trace a request as it flows through several microservices and Lambda functions to find where latency is being introduced. Which AWS service provides this distributed tracing?
- AWS CloudTrail
- AWS Trusted Advisor
- AWS X-Ray
- Amazon QuickSight
Show answer & explanation
Correct: C — AWS X-Ray. X-Ray provides distributed tracing across services, building a service map and showing where latency and errors occur along a request’s path — the standard troubleshooting/observability tool for the DVA-C02 optimization domain.
Why not the others: CloudTrail (A) logs API calls for audit; Trusted Advisor (B) gives best-practice checks; QuickSight (D) is business-intelligence dashboards. None provides request-level distributed tracing.
Source: AWS — What is AWS X-Ray? →A team wants to shift traffic to a new Lambda function version gradually, sending a small percentage of invocations to it first so problems are caught before full rollout. Which deployment approach describes this?
- A single all-at-once cutover with no rollback
- Deleting the old version before deploying the new one
- A canary (or linear) deployment using Lambda aliases with weighted traffic
- Running the new code only on a developer laptop
Show answer & explanation
Correct: C — a canary/linear deployment using Lambda aliases with weighted traffic. Lambda aliases can split invocation traffic by weight between versions, so a canary or linear rollout (often via CodeDeploy) sends a small share to the new version first, catching issues before full shift.
Why not the others: an all-at-once cutover (A) risks a full-blast failure; deleting the old version first (B) removes your rollback path; running on a laptop (D) is not a deployment at all.
Source: AWS — AWS Lambda (versions, aliases & traffic shifting) →Keep going: Learning & Career resources
DVA-C02 opens two paths — deeper AWS professional certifications, and developer roles across cloud-native engineering. Both PowerKram hubs back this exam.
Deep dive: DVA-C02 format, scoring, study path, and how it differs from SAA-C03
Exam format and scoring
DVA-C02 delivers 65 questions in 130 minutes. Only 50 are scored; the other 15 are unscored items AWS uses to trial future questions, and they are not identified during the exam — so treat every question as if it counts. Question formats are multiple choice (one correct answer of four) and multiple response (two or more correct answers, with the question telling you how many to select). Scoring is scaled from 100 to 1000 with a passing mark of 720, and it is compensatory: you pass on the overall score and do not need a minimum in each domain. Read the DevOps delivery foundations →
How DVA-C02 differs from Solutions Architect Associate
Many candidates prepare for DVA-C02 as if it were SAA-C03 with more Lambda — and lose points for it. The Developer exam rewards implementation judgment over architecture theory: expect far fewer VPC-design questions and far more “what does this SDK call return,” “how does this IAM policy evaluate,” and “how do you trace this latency” scenarios. Shift study time toward code-level service behavior, IAM policy evaluation, and the developer services (Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, Cognito, KMS, SQS/SNS, X-Ray).
Realistic study path
Most candidates need four to eight weeks depending on hands-on experience. A practical plan: get comfortable with the core developer services in a free-tier account (especially Lambda, DynamoDB, and API Gateway), then drill IAM policy evaluation and encryption for the 26% security domain, then practice deployment with SAM and CI/CD and the troubleshooting/observability tools. Spend the most time on Development with AWS Services (32%), the heaviest domain. Read the CI/CD and IaC guide →
Cost, scheduling, and retake policy
The exam costs $150 USD (regional pricing varies) and is delivered at a Pearson VUE test center or online with a proctor. If you do not pass, AWS requires a 14-day wait before you retake, with no annual cap on attempts, and each attempt needs a new registration and fee. If you already hold any AWS certification, a 50% discount voucher is available in your AWS Certification account. AWS’s official DVA-C02 exam guide →
Recertification
AWS certifications are valid for three years. You recertify either by passing the current version of this exam or by earning a higher-level AWS certification. The DevOps Engineer – Professional (DOP-C02) is the natural next step from Developer Associate and automatically extends this credential when earned. See the DevOps Engineer Professional next step →
Career outlook for DVA-C02
Developer Associate is a strong signal for cloud-native application roles: backend developer, full-stack engineer, and cloud developer positions that build on AWS. It pairs naturally with SAA-C03 for a design-plus-build associate base, and points toward the DevOps professional track for engineers who own delivery end to end. Career Hub — Developer →
AWS Developer Associate (DVA-C02) exam FAQ
What are the DVA-C02 exam domains and weights?
What is the DVA-C02 passing score?
How many questions is the DVA-C02 exam and how long is it?
Does the AWS Developer Associate exam have prerequisites?
How much does DVA-C02 cost and how long is it valid?
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