AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C03) validates the ability to build applications on AWS: writing code against AWS services and SDKs, Lambda and event-driven integrations with SQS, SNS and EventBridge, DynamoDB and other data stores, securing the application and its data, testing it, deploying it through CI/CD to Lambda or to containers on ECS, EKS and Fargate, and finding and fixing problems once it runs.
Exam format at a glance
| Format | 65 questions (50 scored, 15 unscored and unidentified) in 130 minutes, multiple choice and multiple response. Delivered at a Pearson VUE test centre or online with a proctor. |
| Cost | Approximately 150 USD, before regional pricing and taxes. |
| Scoring | Scored on a scaled 100–1000 range; 720 is the passing mark. AWS does not publish the exact question-to-scale conversion. |
| Validity | Valid for 3 years, then renewed by recertifying or by earning a higher-level AWS certification. |
Who this exam is for
- Developers who write and deploy application code against AWS services day to day, and want a credential that reflects that
- Engineers moving from AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or Solutions Architect – Associate toward a more implementation-focused credential
- Teams building serverless or container applications, or adding generative AI features with Amazon Bedrock, who want their developers fluent in how these services fail and how to secure them
How to actually study for it
- Weight your study time like the real exam does: Development with AWS Services is the largest domain at 30%, Security is 26%, and Testing and Deployment and Troubleshooting and Optimization are 22% each.
- Know Lambda's operational details cold: cold starts vs. provisioned concurrency, API Gateway's 29-second default integration timeout, how environment variables are protected, destinations vs. dead-letter queues, and event source mapping batch behavior for SQS and Kinesis.
- Learn the new AI-service security task as mechanisms, not product names: IAM permissions on model invocation, VPC endpoints for private connectivity, Bedrock Guardrails on inputs and outputs, and keeping prompts and responses with personal data out of readable logs. Choosing models, writing prompts and designing RAG are out of scope.
- Use the free 10-question diagnostic first to find your weakest domain, then read that domain's page and its free practice questions, and use Review Mode on your misses before taking a full timed attempt. This exam rewards knowing the operational gotchas, which repetition surfaces fast.
Where to go next
Start with the free 10-question diagnostic to see where you actually stand, read 15 sample questions with answers, or go straight to the one-page DVA-C03 cheat sheet. The full DVA-C03 practice exam covers every domain at the real exam's weighting, with every answer explained.