DVA-C02 — AWS Certified Developer - Associate
Amazon

AWS Certified Developer - Associate (DVA-C02) Practice Questions

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100 questions
June 10, 2026 updated
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Domain coverage

  • Development with AWS Services (32%)
  • Security (26%)
  • Deployment (24%)
  • Troubleshooting and Optimization (18%)

Sample Questions (10 of 100 shown)

Q1 Development with AWS Services
A developer is building a serverless application using AWS Lambda. The Lambda function needs to securely retrieve database credentials without hardcoding them in the code. Which AWS service should the developer use?
  1. AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store using SecureString parameters
  2. Amazon S3 with server-side encryption
  3. AWS CloudFormation with encrypted parameters
  4. Amazon DynamoDB with encryption at rest
✓ Correct Answer: A
AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store with SecureString parameters is the recommended approach for securely storing configuration data and secrets like database credentials. It integrates natively with Lambda and supports KMS encryption. While AWS Secrets Manager is also an option for credential rotation, Parameter Store with SecureString is cost-effective for simple credential storage.
Q2 Development with AWS Services
A developer needs to process messages from an Amazon SQS queue. Each message may take up to 5 minutes to process. What should the developer do to prevent messages from being processed multiple times?
  1. Set the queue visibility timeout to 5 minutes or longer
  2. Delete messages from the queue immediately after receiving
  3. Use a FIFO queue instead of a standard queue
  4. Set the message retention period to 1 minute
✓ Correct Answer: A
The visibility timeout is the period during which SQS prevents other consumers from receiving and processing a message. If processing takes up to 5 minutes, the visibility timeout must be set to at least 5 minutes (or ideally longer) to prevent other consumers from picking up the same message before processing completes.
Q3 Development with AWS Services
A developer is deploying a containerized application to AWS. The application needs to automatically scale based on CPU utilization and handle variable traffic patterns. Which AWS service provides the simplest solution?
  1. AWS Elastic Beanstalk with Docker platform
  2. Amazon ECS with EC2 launch type and Auto Scaling groups
  3. AWS Fargate with Application Auto Scaling
  4. Amazon EC2 with Docker installed and Auto Scaling groups
✓ Correct Answer: C
AWS Fargate combined with Application Auto Scaling provides the simplest solution for deploying containerized applications with automatic scaling. Fargate is serverless, eliminating the need to manage EC2 instances, while Application Auto Scaling handles scaling based on CPU utilization and other metrics.
Q4 Development with AWS Services
A developer is creating an application that includes an Amazon API Gateway REST API in the us-east-2 Region. The developer wants to use Amazon CloudFront and a custom domain for the API. The developer has obtained an SSL/TLS certificate for the domain from a third-party provider. How should the developer configure the custom domain?
  1. Import the SSL/TLS certificate into AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) in the same Region as the API. Create a DNS A record for the custom domain.
  2. Import the SSL/TLS certificate into CloudFront. Create a DNS CNAME record for the custom domain.
  3. Import the SSL/TLS certificate into ACM in the us-east-1 Region. Create a DNS CNAME record for the custom domain.
  4. Import the SSL/TLS certificate into AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) in the same Region as the API. Create a DNS CNAME record for the custom domain.
✓ Correct Answer: A
Amazon API Gateway requires the certificate to be imported into ACM in the same Region as the API (us-east-2 in this case). An A record (alias record) is used for the custom domain. Note that certificates for CloudFront distributions must be imported into us-east-1, but API Gateway uses the local region.
Q5 Development with AWS Services
A developer maintains a critical business application that uses Amazon DynamoDB as its primary data store. The DynamoDB table contains millions of documents and receives 30-60 requests per minute. The developer needs near real-time processing of documents when they are added or updated. How can this be implemented with minimal changes to existing code?
  1. Set up a cron job on an EC2 instance to query the table for changes every hour
  2. Enable DynamoDB Streams on the table and invoke an AWS Lambda function
  3. Update the application to send PutEvents to Amazon EventBridge and create an EventBridge rule
  4. Update the application to process documents synchronously after DynamoDB writes
✓ Correct Answer: B
DynamoDB Streams captures a time-ordered sequence of item-level modifications in a DynamoDB table and stores the information for up to 24 hours. By enabling streams and triggering a Lambda function, near real-time processing is achieved with minimal code changes.
Q6 Development with AWS Services
A developer is building a microservices application where one service needs to asynchronously invoke another. The receiving service must process each message at least once, but duplicate processing should be minimized. Which AWS service combination best meets these requirements?
  1. Amazon SNS to send messages, Amazon SQS FIFO queue to receive messages
  2. Amazon EventBridge to send events, AWS Lambda to process events
  3. Amazon SQS standard queue with short polling and consumer-side deduplication
  4. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams with multiple shards for parallel processing
✓ Correct Answer: A
SNS to SQS FIFO is the best combination. SNS provides pub/sub fan-out, while SQS FIFO ensures exactly-once processing (minimizing duplicates) with message ordering and deduplication within a 5-minute window. This handles the "at least once with minimized duplicates" requirement effectively.
Q7 Development with AWS Services
An application stores user session data in Amazon ElastiCache for Redis. The development team wants to ensure sessions persist even if a cache node fails. What configuration should they implement?
  1. Enable Multi-AZ with automatic failover
  2. Enable Redis persistence (AOF) on the cache cluster
  3. Use Redis Cluster Mode with multiple shards
  4. Implement application-level session replication to S3
✓ Correct Answer: A
Multi-AZ with automatic failover for ElastiCache Redis provides high availability by automatically failing over to a read replica in another AZ if the primary node fails. Redis persistence (AOF) provides durability but doesn't ensure high availability. Cluster Mode is for partitioning data across shards, not failover.
Q8 Development with AWS Services
A developer is building an application that needs to send emails to users. The application must handle email bounces and complaints. Which AWS service should be used, and which additional service helps track these events?
  1. Amazon SNS to send emails, CloudWatch to track bounces
  2. Amazon SES to send emails, SNS notifications to handle bounce and complaint events
  3. Amazon SES to send emails, SQS to queue bounce notifications
  4. Amazon WorkMail to send emails, EventBridge for event tracking
✓ Correct Answer: B
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is designed for sending emails at scale. SES can be configured with SNS notifications for bounce and complaint events, allowing automated handling through Lambda functions. This is the standard AWS pattern for managing email delivery issues.
Q9 Development with AWS Services
A company has installed smart meters at all customer locations. The meters measure electricity usage every minute and send readings to a remote endpoint. The company needs an endpoint to receive readings and store them with location ID and timestamp. The solution must provide low-latency access to current and historical data, handle significant demand growth, and scale without performance impact or downtime. Which solution is most cost-effective?
  1. Store readings in Amazon RDS with indexes on location ID and timestamp columns
  2. Store readings in Amazon DynamoDB with a composite key on location ID and timestamp
  3. Store readings in Amazon ElastiCache for Redis with SortedSet keys
  4. Store readings in Amazon S3 partitioned by location ID and timestamp, queried with Athena
✓ Correct Answer: B
DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database providing predictable performance at any scale with seamless horizontal scaling. A composite key (partition key = location ID, sort key = timestamp) enables efficient queries for both current and historical usage per location. RDS would struggle with the scale, ElastiCache is not persistent, and S3+Athena can't provide low-latency access.
Q10 Development with AWS Services
A developer is building a REST API using Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda. The API will be accessed by multiple third-party partners, each needing different access permissions to specific API resources. What is the most secure and scalable approach?
  1. Use API keys for each partner with usage plans configured at different throttling limits
  2. Implement a custom Lambda authorizer that validates partner credentials and returns IAM policies
  3. Use Amazon Cognito user pools with different user groups for each partner
  4. Create separate API Gateway deployments with different configurations for each partner
✓ Correct Answer: B
A custom Lambda authorizer provides the most flexible and secure solution. It can validate partner credentials (API keys, tokens, certificates) and return specific IAM policies that grant or deny access to individual API resources. This enables fine-grained, per-partner access control without creating separate deployments.

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Frequently Asked Questions

The two certifications have complementary but distinct focuses. DVA-C02 is developer-centric — it tests your ability to write code that integrates with AWS services, using Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, SDKs, and CI/CD pipelines. SAA-C03 is architecture-centric — it tests your ability to design systems across all AWS services with a focus on cost, reliability, and performance tradeoffs. While there is service overlap, DVA-C02 goes deeper into SDK usage, Lambda configuration, DynamoDB data modeling, and deployment automation. Many professionals earn both to demonstrate full-stack AWS capability.

The exam is language-agnostic — you can use Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, C#, Go, or any AWS-supported runtime. However, Python is the most practical choice for the exam because it's concise, widely used in AWS documentation and tutorials, and supported across all AWS services (Lambda, SDK, CDK, SAM). JavaScript/TypeScript (Node.js) is also an excellent choice, especially if you work in full-stack development. The exam tests your ability to read and understand code snippets, SDK calls, and CLI commands rather than writing code from scratch.

Yes — Lambda and serverless are at the heart of the DVA-C02 exam, especially in Domain 1 (32% weight). You need deep knowledge of Lambda configuration (versions, aliases, environment variables, layers, reserved concurrency, VPC integration), invocation models (synchronous, asynchronous, event-source mapping), error handling (DLQ, retries, destinations), and performance optimization (cold starts, provisioned concurrency). Combined with DynamoDB, API Gateway, SQS, SNS, and Step Functions, the exam effectively tests your ability to build production-ready serverless applications on AWS.

Our product delivers 400+ practice questions organized across all four domains with correct weightings. Each question includes detailed explanations that break down the correct answer and explain why each distractor is wrong — building the practical SDK-level understanding needed for the exam. You get full-length simulation exams (65 questions, 130 minutes), domain-wise practice modules covering Development, Security, Deployment, and Troubleshooting, and a downloadable PDF study guide featuring Lambda code snippets, DynamoDB query patterns, API Gateway integration comparison tables, and CI/CD pipeline architecture diagrams for rapid offline review.

Study time varies by experience. Developers with 1+ year of AWS hands-on experience typically need 6-8 weeks (80-100 hours). Those with general development experience but new to AWS may need 10-12 weeks (120-150 hours). We recommend: (1) Review the official exam guide and in-scope services; (2) Complete AWS Skill Builder's DVA-C02 Exam Prep digital course; (3) Practice hands-on with Lambda, DynamoDB, and API Gateway; (4) Use our practice tests for domain-wise assessment; (5) Take full-length simulation exams to build time management; (6) Focus final review on weaker domains.

Yes! The exam guide now includes emerging topics related to AI-assisted development. These appear as pretest questions that do not affect your score but signal AWS's direction. Topics include: using AI-assisted development tools for code generation and review, identifying security risks when integrating AI services, using AWS AI tools for automated test generation, CI/CD workflow enhancement, error analysis and troubleshooting, and optimization opportunity detection. While these are currently unscored, they indicate AWS's commitment to keeping the certification relevant to the evolving developer landscape. Our practice materials include coverage of these emerging topics.

The DVA-C02 is essential for cloud developers and demonstrates your ability to build and deploy applications on AWS using modern development practices. Certified professionals are well-positioned for roles such as Cloud Developer, Serverless Developer, Full-Stack Cloud Engineer, and DevOps Engineer (as a stepping stone). The certification is particularly valued for serverless development skills — one of the fastest-growing areas in cloud computing. It also qualifies you for the Associate-to-Professional exam discount (50% off DOP-C02) and serves as a prerequisite for the DevOps Engineer - Professional path.

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