The Amazon AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification checks your skills to write and deploy cloud-based applications. It is intended for candidates who have performed a developer role and are engaged in developing and maintaining an AWS-based application for more than a year. They are also knowledgeable of the core AWS services and key AWS architecture best practices.
Before gaining this AWS certification, candidates should be knowledgeable of providing application lifecycle management, using AWS Shared Responsibility Model, utilize containers in the development process, and implementing at least one high-level programming language. You also should be proficient in writing codes for serverless apps as well as in developing, applying, and debugging cloud-based apps with the help of AWS. Besides, your abilities to implement AWS service APIs, SDKs, AWS CLI to write apps, define main features of AWS services, apply primary skills to write code for cloud-native apps, and debug modules on AWS will be checked.
To gain the Amazon AWS Certified Developer – Associate designation, you have to crack the DVA-C01 exam intended for candidates who aim to perform a developer role.
The exam content falls into 5 domains to assess specific skills in each section. The first domain is focused on deployment. It checks your skills to implement the written code in AWS using existing CD/CI pipelines, patterns, and processes, to utilize CodePipeline, implement branches and labels for release management. You also should be able to deal with apps through using Elastic Beanstalk dashboard and Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Ability to prepare the app deployment package to be integrated in AWS and provide the deployment of serverless apps will also be assessed.
The second domain is about security. Your skills in making authenticated calls to AWS services, provide communication policy required by an app, and assigning an IAM role to provide a service access will be tested. In addition, your proficiency in applying encryption in AWS services, as well as using app authorization and authentication will be checked as well.
The third domain is centered on development with AWS services. In this section, you should be able to write code for serverless apps. For that you should possess skills to differ server-based from serverless models, create Lambda functions, test API actions (POST, GET), implement Amazon DynamoDB concepts properly, and deal with Amazon CloudWatch event, API Gateway, Amazon Kinesis, and Amazon S3 events. Besides, you should be able to reform functional requirements into the app design, apply the app design into the app code, and write the code that corresponds with AWS services through using SDKs, APIs, and AWS CLI.
The fourth domain deals with refactoring. In this part, your proficiency in implementing AWS caching services, utilizing an Amazon S3 naming scheme, and migrating the app code to function on AWS will be assessed.
The final domain contained in this exam is dedicated to monitoring and troubleshooting. Your skills to write a code that can be monitored is of top priority. Thus, you should be able to produce custom Amazon CloudWatch metrics and app source code. To add more, you should demonstrate your skills to provide root cause analysis on faults found in testing.
To prove that you possess all the above-mentioned skills, you need to complete 65 multiple choice or response questions within 130 minutes. Still, note, that only 50 questions will be assessed, the rest 15 are unscored. What else you should consider before starting your certification process is that gaining at least 720 points marks your pass status at this exam. And the test itself will cost you $150.
Referring to the question about salary, with the Amazon AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification, you can earn annually about $103,000 per year.
