Why this one?

Out of all the ones that are suggested this one is the most highly recommended middle-of-the-road certificate for Developers.
In order to solidify your knowledge, you can demonstrate it with badges and certificates.
Because DVA provides a good overview:
1. Delivering business value over complex architecture: Patterns like Publisher/Subscriber are popular for a reason. They are effective. They have an inbuilt retry mechanism and they are simple to
2. Pattern recognition: It isn't about memorizing the exact service and exact options. If you can recognize the Well-Architected Framework pillar you are optimizing for and what services are associated with the trade-off, then the implementation details will flow.
2. Feature matching: most products are similar. Feature sets are where they differ the most. Given a set of requirements, we can pick the top services that provide the right features. Building off very common patterns is a good starting point and offloading the majority of hosting issues to AWS frees up the Developer to concentrate on what the business cares about. The business value from the business logic you're writing.
3. Standard testing limits: all tests that are closed book is limited. In the real world, a closed book isn't a reality. What is a reality is elevator pitches. This will give you a level of confidence if you study well and get your hands dirty that will allow you to do various architectures, question them and potentially implement them.

The process

First, we identify gaps

By Blurting, we can see what we know on a given topic. Blurt on each section of the exam, each service and how they work together based on optimizing for a pillar.

Then, we get our hands dirty

Set up a budget to limit the costly services.

Check what it's going to cost.

Go learn and take notes (convert them to flash cards/cheat sheets)

Go build what you are not familiar with. Serverless is a must with this. Understand what a lambda is and what services call it and are called by it.
Mareek has a yearly course on this like the 2023 edition.

O'Reilly has a bunch of courses on this.

AWS has a bunch of training courses on serverless, containers and server-based workloads.

Then, we battle the forgetting curve

While you can skip step two, you will suffer on the job.

Open Tutorial Dojo, buy the exam sample questions or build your flashcards

The Process:

1. Every day for 10 minutes

2. Learn why it was the right answer.

3. Learn why it was not the right answer. Answer elimination will turn a 25% chance of passing into a 50% chance for a question set of 4.

4. Practice timing yourself. Let's say there are 70 questions/160 minutes = approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds for each question. Flag essay questions and get quick wins.

5. Blurt what you know.

6. When you're consistently getting 80-90% on time, go sit it.

Book the exam

You can rebook!
You cannot get the time you spend preparing back.
Study smart.
Give yourself the minimum amount of time + 2 days buffer to rebook.

When you have your lead indicator (flashcards/blurting/timing) set up to identify if you're ready, the lag indicator will follow (certificate).

I've delayed every exam without fail by a week or more. It gives you that sense of urgency, that last-minute cram feeling.

Announce your win on LinkedIn!
Give credit to great content creators (see above) and aggregators like me.

Overlap with other AWS Associate exams

It's worth noting the SysOps Associate exam overlaps at around 40% with the Developer Associate exam.

The Solutions Architect Associate overlaps about 40% with the Developer Associate exam (but a different 40%).

So if you're looking to get more training they could both help as you may also want to work towards an AWS Professional exam.

Disclaimers

I am not guaranteeing:

1. You will pass with the steps above. You have to do the work. Setup good habits and the certificate will be a side effect of them.

2. A job. This forms a portion of your T-shaped skills.

3. You will not have a massive AWS bill. Setup alerts. Back-of-the-envelope calculations are your friend.

4. Ingress to AWS can be cheap with the right service, but Egress is expensive.

No Warranty
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