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AWS Developer Associate

A route to AWS Developer Associate: the exam guide and a guarded sandbox, Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB and messaging labs, security and pipelines for developers, debugging drills, timed mocks and exam day.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for AWS Developer Associate, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

195

Starter tasks

🏅 Tech & Engineering Certifications

AWS Developer Associate

Studying for AWS Developer Associate: serverless and API services, deployment pipelines, security for developers, debugging and practice in a sandbox account.

  1. Developer Associate exam guide and domain map
  2. Diagnostic practice set and baseline score
  3. Sandbox AWS account with billing guardrails
  4. CLI profiles, SSO access and one SDK language
  5. Choosing a course and practice exam bank
  6. Study calendar to a target exam week
  7. A sample serverless app as the study spine
  8. Developer reading list of FAQs and docs
  9. Weekly build session in the sandbox
  10. Daily ten-question warm-up
  11. Wrong answer log and weekly pattern review
  12. Twice-monthly timed practice exam
  13. Domain score tracker
  14. Monthly sandbox clean-up and cost check
  15. Service limits and defaults flashcards
  16. Monthly study plan review and exam guide check
  17. Lambda execution model, concurrency and configuration
  18. API Gateway stages, integrations and authorisers
  19. DynamoDB keys, indexes and capacity modes
  20. DynamoDB conditional writes, transactions and streams
  21. Decoupling with SQS, SNS and EventBridge
  22. Step Functions workflows with retries and catches
  23. Cognito user pools and identity pools
  24. IAM policies, roles and STS from application code
  25. Encryption with KMS, Secrets Manager and Parameter Store
  26. S3 presigned URLs, events and encryption for developers
  27. CloudFormation, SAM and CDK templates
  28. Release pipeline with CodeBuild, CodeDeploy and CodePipeline
  29. Deployment strategies across Lambda, Beanstalk and containers
  30. CloudWatch logs, metrics and alarms for application code
  31. X-Ray tracing across a serverless request
  32. SDK retries, backoff and throttling errors
  33. Caching with ElastiCache, DAX and API Gateway
  34. Service comparison sheet for look-alike answers
  35. Reading scenario questions for keywords and distractors
  36. Closing the weakest domain after the first full mock
  37. Making the case for employer exam funding
  38. Exam readiness go or postpone decision
  39. Booking the exam and choosing test centre or online
  40. Final fortnight before the Developer Associate exam
  41. Exam day plan and check-in
  42. Results, digital badge and retake plan
  43. Developer Associate for a backend developer new to AWS
  44. Developer Associate for a frontend developer going full stack
  45. Studying in short sessions as a working parent
  46. Sitting the exam in a second language
  47. Leading a team study cohort
  48. Hardening the study app to production habits
  49. Internal serverless starter template from your notes
  50. Choosing the next AWS step after Developer Associate

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Developer Associate exam guide and domain map

AWS publishes an exam guide that lists the domains, task statements and in-scope services, and it is the only syllabus that counts. Turning it into a one-page map, with every task statement rated by how confident you are, shows in an evening where most of the study hours need to go and stops you studying services that are out of scope.

First tasks

  • Download the current Developer Associate exam guide from the AWS certification site
  • Copy each domain and task statement into a single page
  • Rate your confidence on every task statement from one to five
  • Note the current fee, format and scoring rules with today's date

Diagnostic practice set and baseline score

Most developers overrate the services they use every day and underrate how much the exam asks about deployment and IAM detail. One untimed practice set taken before studying, scored by domain, gives an honest starting point and makes later progress visible rather than felt.

First tasks

  • Find the official practice question set in AWS Skill Builder
  • Take one full set without notes or search
  • Record the score for each domain with the date
  • Name the three task statements you missed most often

Sandbox AWS account with billing guardrails

Developer Associate is a hands-on exam in disguise: questions about Lambda timeouts, DynamoDB throttling and CodeDeploy hooks are far easier once you have broken them yourself. A separate study account with a budget alert, MFA on the root user and a region you always use means you can experiment freely without surprise bills or touching work resources.

First tasks

  • Create a separate AWS account used only for study
  • Turn on MFA for the root user and lock the root credentials away
  • Set a monthly budget with email alerts at a low threshold
  • Pick one home region and use it for every lab

Make it yours.

Install AWS Developer Associate, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.