If you are interested in the Azure Developer position, then obtaining the Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate certification should be your goal. This accreditation validates the skills in creating, testing, and maintaining cloud apps and services based on Microsoft Azure. The certified professionals are involved in all stages of cloud development from requirements and design to implementation and monitoring. In addition, Azure developers collaborate with cloud solution architects, cloud administrators, and cloud DBAs to apply solutions. The certification process includes passing the AZ-204 exam.
The AZ-204 evaluation checks your proficiency in developing solutions for Microsoft Azure. This test contains 40-60 questions which you need to solve within 1 hour and 40 minutes or 2 hours. The duration of the exam depends on the fact whether the labs are included in the evaluation or not. The timeframe for exams without labs is shorter. Before enrolling in the exam procedure you have to pay $165 of the exam fee and have at least 1 year of experience in working with Microsoft Azure. It means that having the ability to program in a language that is supported by Azure is a must. In addition, you should be competent in dealing with Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, Azure SDKs, APIs, data connections, container deployment, performance tuning, and monitoring.
The exam content falls into five parts, each of which is dedicated to checking the definite skills. The first topic is about developing Azure compute solutions. It is the largest part of the exam in which you should be proficient. Your skills to utilize IaaS solutions, apply Azure functions, and design Azure App Service Web Apps will be checked. So, in this section, you also should be ready to work with virtual machines, create container images for solutions, integrate code to a web app, as well as create Azure Functions apps.
The second topic is centered on developing for Azure storage. Skills tested in this part include developing solutions that utilize Cosmos DB storage and use blob storage. That’s why to succeed in it, you should be familiar with SDK & API, Cosmos DB containers, Blob storage, and storage policies.
The third topic is devoted to using Azure security. This implies that you are competent in dealing with user authorization and authentication, as well as securing cloud solutions. In this domain, you should demonstrate your skills to utilize Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Identity platform, Azure Key Vault, Azure resources, and Microsoft Graph.
The fourth section is focused on troubleshooting, optimizing, and monitoring Azure solutions. In this part, you should be capable of providing content delivery within solutions and developing solutions to support logging & monitoring. Therefore, you should have skills in working with Azure Redis Cache, optimized app cache patterns, App Insights, and Azure Monitor.
The fifth part aims to validate your skills in connecting and consuming Azure services as well as third-party services. Being able to apply API management, develop solutions based on messages and events is of top priority in this domain. Your proficiency in using policies and authentication for APIs, Azure Event Grid and Hubs, and Azure Service Bus will be measured. So, you should be experienced in all these topics and subtopics.
If you are interested in how much money you can earn with the Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate certification, then the Ziprecruiter website is your main resource to get this information. According to this platform, certified professionals earn about $138,264 per year.