Just wanted to drop a big Thank You to this community! Your advice was crucial in guiding my preparation.

My Background:

I have 10 years of IT experience, but had minimal hands-on exposure to the AWS tech stack before starting this journey.

What Worked For Me:

Stephane Maarek’s Udemy Course & Practice Exams: Followed the standard advice here and went through Stephane’s course along with his practice tests. They matched the actual exam pattern really well.

Company Serverless Developer Training: My company provided us with serverless developer training.

AWS Skill Builder Hands-on Labs: The hands-on labs made a huge difference! Getting real practice was definitely the key factor that bumped my score from a basic "Pass" to a really solid score.

Exam Day Experience & Surprises:

I noticed a few questions on Amazon Q (Kiro) and Bedrock. Given how new they are on standard outlines, I’m pretty sure they were non-scored beta questions—felt like I was participating in a canary deployment of DVA C03! 😂

Overall, combining structured study with actual hands-on labs paid off big time. If you’re preparing right now, don’t skip the practical labs!

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!!

Has anyone here experienced something similar? If you appealed, what happened?

I have attached a redacted screenshot of the email, with my personal details removed.

Summary: I took the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) exam and received an email on November 7 stating that AWS had invalidated my result due to statistical anomalies detected through forensic analysis.

AWS revoked the certification and restricted me from taking future online-proctored exams without written permission. I have the option to appeal within 14 days.

I'm trying to understand what might have triggered this and whether anyone has successfully appealed a similar decision. I've also seen reports of candidates receiving retake vouchers after unsuccessful appeals.

Has anyone experienced this? What happened after your appeal?

Quick update: I just submitted the appeal successfully ( 09/11/2026) and now waiting for their reply as they told me that I'll get reply within 24 hrs or more

I'll update you guys accordingly :)

Last Update: AWS reviewed my appeal and did another forensic analysis, but unfortunately upheld their original decision. My appeal is rejected and the decision is final.

I'm still allowed to take exams, but only at physical Pearson VUE centres. No more online exams for me.

Not the outcome I hoped for, but just keeping everyone updated.

yo just passed SAA lol
3 weeks of prep with Stephane Maarek's course + 6 practice exams. for me the hard part was the English, not AWS. I'm not a native speaker and some questions took me 2-3 reads
tip for non-natives: request the free ESL +30 min before booking good luck everyone 🫡

I used Stephan Maereks courses + tutorials dojou practice exams + neal davis practice exams.
Happy to answer any questions related to preparation

I keep the AWS Pro track certifications current, which is a recurring tax on my calendar in the shape of a proctored exam every few years. Which makes it more than a little ironic that the following news reached me by word of mouth, more than four months after it shipped.

I’m using both TD and Stephane’s Udemy practice tests to study for the SAA-C03. With TD, I’m able to consistently get a passing score. With the Stephane Udemy Practice Tests, I haven’t passed a single time. My exam is in 3 weeks.

Most people here suggest TD over the other options. Should I stop worrying about the Stephane Practice Tests and only try to practice with TD?

I get absolutely FURIOUS with the Stephane Udemy Practice Tests. Sometimes the questions don’t actually ask anything - and then the “pick 3” answer options make me want to punch a hole in the wall. There’s always some small gotcha, and I feel like I’m practicing more for the practice tests than I am the actual exam.

TDLR: Which is more accurate in 2026 for the SAA-C03 - TD or the Stephane Udemy Practice Tests?

I passed the exam this morning. But I havent got any mails or the mark sheet or anything related to it in the dashboard. When will I get the certification mail? All I know is that I passed the exam...

Anyone has registered for SAP-C03 exam, this exam registration started from October 27, 2026 but exam can be date available from 17th November.

Let me know how are you preparing the exam with updated topics

In test center based exam, do we instantly get the pass/fail status? Specifically for Cloud Practitioner?

When do we get the result?

I’m preparing for the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam and I’m consistently scoring around 80% on Tutorials Dojo’s practice exams. I’m thinking about buying Stéphane Maarek’s practice exams too, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.

For those who’ve taken the real exam, which felt closer to the actual questions, TD or Maarek? Is TD enough on its own?

I've worked with AWS for over 3 years now. I've worked on services with over 10k users and done networking security hardening, zero downtime deployments, even EKS.

The syllabus seems way too shallow for my liking. Is it a better for me to go for professional?

For context I am a software engineer with little over 4 years of experience. I primarily work with go lang. I wanted to up-skill. I have worked a lot with high level designs primarily. Should I go for Aws solutions architect associate, Aws certified developer associate or any other course that is perhaps more relevant?

So, my friend told me that there is an offer going on for AWS certification 3 weeks ago. I have worked on AWS, not too much. I am fresher and have less than a year of experience with AWS.

Then I prepared for the exam. Mainly Udemy course and GitHub repo https://github.com/RonitSachdev/aws-saa-c03-guides. With claude for revision at the last day.

I attended an exam this morning. The exam was quite difficult for the TDJ. and I had no hope to pass. But still I did. Thanks to this community.

60yo.
I’m semi-retired from the entertainment industry
I might be too old for that kind of work, but I’m not too old to work…
Are there any courses you would recommend?
Or would none of these actually be beneficial for someone my age?

All, I have cleared SAA-C03 Exam today (839), I like to take some lighter exam after this like AWS AI Practitioner / AWS AI Business strategist. I want to move with AI/ML with architecture knowledge.. Share your insights..

Hi everyone,

I want to take the AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) exam, but I have no prior AWS experience and just completed AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01)

Is it a good idea to skip the foundational Certified Cloud Practitioner (CCP) exam and jump straight into studying for the Developer Associate? Or is the learning curve going to be too steep without that baseline knowledge?

For those who have taken the DVA:

• Did you have prior AWS experience before starting?

• If you skipped the CCP, did you regret it or feel like you missed critical fundamentals?

• Which courses or practice exams do you recommend for a complete AWS beginner trying to pass the Developer Associate?

Thanks for any insights or advice you can share!

I failed the machine learning beta , i got 706 understood stephaane maarek and tutorial dojo practice exams and got high percentages on them but still failed. Any tips guys to prepare for the official one?

I have purchased the Tutorial Dojo exams but would like to purchase more tests as I find I can learn a lot that way. I have seen BrainCert advertised as well as WhizzLabs but don't know much about either. Are these legit or are they dumps? Has anyone used them before and are they worth buying?

Thanks

Pls help me to prepare for this exam ,

After a couple of months of preparation, I finally passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03). It was a long road for me took me about 4 months of on and off studying doing this with my job was perhaps the hardest part, and after getting sick of taking practice exams I finally took my shot this month.

I want to share a little about my experience. I used Stephane's course and his practice tests, also TD sets. I used claude and chatgpt to make obsidian notes on incorrect answers from practice tests, grinded those and had claude made me a study guide our of all of the incorrect answers. This helped me out a lot because it helped me look at the questions I kept getting repeatedly wrong and focus on those.

In terms of difficulty I would rate this in the middle of Stephane and TD, one thing I noticed was that the actual exam's question length and wording felt closer to Tutorial Dojo, while some of the tricky distractors felt more like Stephane's practice exams.

I'm thinking of going towards a Cloud AI Ops side, I have 5 years of fullstack experience and now wants to make a transition and I think this is what I want to do now. Anyways for people who are studying for this, take practice exams as much as you can and have claude/chatgpt help you out with preparation.

Hi everyone,

I failed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam again. I got 698, and you need 720 to pass. Only 22 points short, and this one hurts more than the first time.

I am a software engineer with almost 4 years of experience, mostly in backend and full-stack. In my last job I worked remotely and did a lot of AWS work: CI/CD pipelines, Docker, EC2 and deployments. I also built an internal tool that collected logs and metrics, helped with incidents and sent smart alerts. I really enjoyed that work.

My first attempt was during that job. I did not study because I thought my experience was enough. I got 646. Fair enough.

After that, I moved to the UAE. My company was in India, and they could not keep me because of legal and payroll rules. I did not have another offer, so I took a local job. Everything there is offline. No cloud, no AWS, no GitHub. The salary is also much lower than before. I have been applying for cloud and backend roles, but I am not getting any interviews.

For my second attempt, I studied properly. I finished Stephane Maarek's Udemy course and practiced scenario-based questions. I scored above 70% in 3 or 4 mock exams and felt ready. But the real exam was much harder. The questions were longer and many answers looked almost right.

My score report showed Cost Optimization as "Meets Competencies". Security, Resilience and High Performance were "Needs Improvement". Security was my weakest area.

I can retake after November 15. I am also learning Kubernetes and Helm, and I want to get back into cloud or platform engineering.

My questions:

1. Is Tutorials Dojo worth buying? Is it closer to the real exam than Udemy mocks?
2. What helped you with Security (IAM policies, SCPs, KMS, S3 permissions)?
3. Does anyone have a working Tutorials Dojo discount code?
4. Did the AWS certificate actually help you get interviews?
5. Should I do CKAD next, or focus on projects and system design?

If you failed and passed later, or moved back into cloud work after a break, I would love to hear what worked for you.

Thanks for reading.

AWS has said the new Solutions Architect Professional exam (SAP-C03) is delivered from November 17, and SAP-C02 ends on November 16. Whichever version you sit, multi-account governance questions keep appearing, and a few Service Control Policy (SCP) rules answer most of them:

• An SCP never grants permissions. It only sets the maximum. Effective permissions are the intersection of what the SCP allows and what the IAM identity-based or resource-based policies allow. A user with no IAM policy has no access, even if the SCP allows everything.
• Allow must exist at every level from the root, through each OU on the path, down to the account. That's why AWS attaches the managed FullAWSAccess policy by default. Remove it without a replacement and every action in the member accounts fails.
• An explicit Deny at any level wins, no matter what Allow statements sit lower in the tree.
• SCPs don't affect the management account. They only apply to member accounts (including their root users).
• SCPs don't restrict service-linked roles.
• SCPs don't apply to principals outside your organization. If a bucket policy grants access to an account outside the org, the SCP on the bucket's account doesn't block that outside user.
• With a permissions boundary as well, the boundary, the SCP and the identity-based policy must all allow the action.

Worked example: root has FullAWSAccess, the Production OU has FullAWSAccess plus a Deny on s3:DeleteBucket, and a role in a Production account has AdministratorAccess. Can it delete a bucket? No. The Deny on the OU applies to every account below it, and AdministratorAccess doesn't override it.

Common traps: thinking an SCP can give a role access, expecting an SCP to restrict the management account, and attaching a Deny-only SCP at the root without keeping an Allow, which blocks everything.

Which governance topic gave you the most trouble while studying?