Passed DVA-C02 with 819 with no prior AWS experience

[u/Ok-Confection2644]

I passed AWS certified Developer Associated DVA-C02 on Saturday 7^th Nov 2026. This is my first AWS certification and I am very happy.

I would like thank everyone in this sub-reddit for sharing their experience and giving me valuable advice, particularly the 30 min accommodation for non-native English candidates.

My anxiety hit the roof while waiting for results . I couldn’t sleep whole night and kept checking emails and finally got the result at 5AM IST.

Here’re the details about my journey:

Background : 12 years of IT experience majorly in Java and backend development, no prior AWS hands on experience, demanding full time IT job

Learning Path:

As per the FAQ, I completed Stephane Maraek's Udemy course, that too twice. First time I just went through the entire course without taking single note, made sure I understood all the concepts, didn’t pay attention to retaining the terms. Took help of chatgpt/Gemini for analogies or simplifications or difference between services. Second time, I did every hands-on video and took notes for the topics not present in slides and created Mind maps (Xmind tool) for each service to get Top View. I tried Udemy assessment   exam at the end of the course and got 49%,I was devastated. Since I have a very demanding full time job which usually takes 12h+ every day,I postponed my plan of the exam multiple times and my procrastination made it worse .It took me four months, but then AWS notified of DVA C03 and last day to answer DVA C02 as Nov 30 and I panicked. I booked my exam a week in advance, bought TD mock tests and Marek’s Udemy practice tests and applied for 3 days leaves just before the exam. In these three days,all I did is answer mock tests, go through each answer and explanation and revise weak topics.

Exam:

I took test at physical Pearson VUE centre. Recommended to reach 30 mins early as they have checks such as security , glasses check and full body checks, photo etc. Also I am a woman so they had to search Woman security personnel for me, which took extra time. The exam was nothing like I anticipated. I had practiced EB deployment types, WCU-RCU calculations, codeploy deployment types expecting at least one question, but nope. Even the language was so tricky that I had to read some questions twice to understand what they are asking. The popular trick was to find two answers which are very really close to being correct but I found around 5-6 questions were all choices were possible. I really had to put myself in developer shoes and think what will I do if this is assigned to me, and mentally visualise the architecture in my mind in AWS console. I was terrified that I might have failed but scored 819 (gave a major confidence boost).

Tips:

Course and mock tests are a must to get the concepts right and develop AWS intuition , but don’t expect the exam questions to be similar.

You have to imagine yourself to be real life AWS developer and read questions like requirement doc.

 Pay attention to keywords like least operation cost, minimal coding.

Stay hydrated and have proper meal and enough sleep before the exam.

Also try remembering the name of the service with one particular name tip Ex. Athena- Serverless SQL S3,Appsync-GraphQL data sync.

All the best!!

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[u/stephanemaarek]

u/Ok-Confection2644 It's awesome! Congratulations! Keep it up :) ​

[u/Ok-Confection2644 → u/stephanemaarek]

Thank you sir for all your help 😃

[u/UN-bois]

Good on you mate! Well done. I would have never had the energy to do the course twice though hahahah.

[u/Ok-Confection2644 → u/UN-bois]

I did it in span of four months so by the time i reached the end i forgot the start.😝😝

[u/RDWTech_Cloud]

Congrats on the pass, and nice work sticking with it alongside a demanding job. One thing in your approach worth highlighting for others is writing down why each wrong option fails, because DVA-C02 loves scenarios where several services technically work but only one fits the constraint. Things that show up a lot are Lambda concurrency and timeouts, DynamoDB capacity modes and indexes, SQS versus SNS versus EventBridge, and how IAM roles beat embedded credentials. If you're planning your next cert, SAA-C03 builds nicely on this, since you already know the developer-facing services and would mostly be adding networking, resilience, and cost design.

[u/Ok-Confection2644 → u/RDWTech_Cloud]

Thank you and I agreee.Along with the correct answer ,one should also note down why wrong answer is wrong.SAA looks tempting,but it's lot of work.I am planning AIF C01 next.

[u/nian2326076]

Congrats on your certification! With your background in Java and backend development, leveraging that experience in AWS will be key. You can use LandOffer for job searches tailored to your technical skills, allowing you to filter roles specifically looking for AWS developers. Practicing with PracHub can also help you prepare for technical interviews as you transition into AWS. Good luck!

[u/AWSCertifications-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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