- Published on
How I Passed The AWS Certified Developer Associate Certification
- Authors
- Name
- Femi Alayesanmi
- @alayesanmi
I decided to challenge my knowledge of AWS services with a certification and i passed on my first attempt!
I am happy to share how I did it in this article.
Background
I have worked with AWS for the past 3 years (at the time of writing this article). I have worked with cloud services on AWS and GCP. I'd always build with AWS due to my experience not preference.
Is The Certification Necessary or Not?
This is a very common question and i asked myself same question before paying $150 to take this certification.
My honest answer to this is, No its not. Personally, i've never gotten into an interview and got a question on how many certifications I have. However the questions are always geared towards problem solving or knowledge about certain technologies as required for the role because that's what matters.
But, if you like challenges like me. The certification is worth the short, it also made me learn very interesting AWS services I don't use in my day-to-day task and the badge looks nice on my LinkedIn since I earned it. The knowledge is worth it, and this outweighs the badge!
Not to state that it was very difficult, but you need to have prior experience working with AWS services to pass the exam.
I have seen some folks online claim to pass the exam without practical experience working with AWS but i would not advise this.
Before The Exam
I dedicated a month to prepare and I set my test date for June 30, 2024. Resources that came handy for my prep and were 100% helpful:
- Stephanie Mareek's and Abhishek Singh's —Practice Exams | AWS Certified Developer Associate 2024 on Udemy
- Youtube videos from Neal K Davies from his Digital Cloud Training Channel
- AWS Well-Architected Whitepapers
- AWS Certified Developer Exam guide
- AWS Certified Developer — Associate (DVA-C02) by Nick Garner on O'rielly
The Exam
The structure of the exam is just as AWS promised here, 65 questions (either multiple choice or multiple response) for 130 minutes. The 130 minutes is more than enough (of course if you prepared for the exam), and you can skip questions and come back to them later if you are having trouble with choosing your answer at a glance.
Few tips:
- Have a good internet
- Avoid your phone or external screen on you desk, just your laptop is required to take the exam
- Read the questions and the options carefully before you choose (i got confused with some answers they were very similar)
- You don't need to answer all questions correctly (pass mark is 700/1000), however make sure you answer all correctly.
After The Exam
The result was sent to my email about an hour after the exam, and it was positive with a score way above the pass mark!
If you are thinking of taking the certification, i highly recommend you do! Next for me, would be the AWS Solution Architect Professional Exam and I will be sharing how I earn the badge when I do.
Disclaimer
You do not need to read or watch all the materials I shared in the article to pass the exam, however they were very helpful so highly recommend all of them.
Also, nothing in this article was sponsored. Every insight shared is completely based on my personal research and i hope it helps those preparing for the same certification!