The AWS Certified Developer – Associate DVA-C03 is the updated version of the DVA-C02 certification exam, reflecting how application development is evolving with AI-assisted coding, managed AI services, modern deployment practices, and stronger security requirements. For candidates preparing for the new exam, the latest DVA-C03 Exam Guide with Practice Test Questions from PassQuestion provides a focused way to review the updated exam objectives, practice scenario-based questions, and identify knowledge gaps. Combining practice tests with the official AWS exam guide, hands-on labs, and practical development experience can help you build the skills needed to develop, secure, test, deploy, and troubleshoot applications on AWS.

What Is the AWS Certified Developer – Associate DVA-C03 Exam?

DVA-C03 is the updated exam for the AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification. It is designed for developers who build and maintain applications using AWS services and need to demonstrate proficiency across the application development lifecycle.

The exam continues to cover application development, security, deployment, troubleshooting, and optimization. However, the updated version places greater emphasis on using AI-assisted development tools, integrating managed AWS AI services into applications, securing AI-related interactions, and applying AI tools to testing, deployment, and troubleshooting workflows.

The goal is not to turn the Developer – Associate exam into an AI engineering certification. Instead, it recognizes that modern cloud developers increasingly use AI capabilities as part of their everyday development workflows while remaining responsible for application quality, security, reliability, and performance.

DVA-C03 Exam Information and Important Dates

Candidates should understand the transition schedule before choosing which version to take.

• Certification: AWS Certified Developer – Associate
• Current exam: DVA-C02
• Updated exam: DVA-C03
• DVA-C02 final exam date: November 30, 2026
• DVA-C03 exam delivery begins: December 1, 2026
• Exam duration: 130 minutes
• Question count: 65 questions, including 50 scored and 15 unscored questions
• Question types: Multiple choice and multiple response
• Passing score: 720 out of 1,000
• Exam fee: USD 150

The unscored questions are not identified during the exam and do not affect the final score. Candidates should answer every question because unanswered questions are scored as incorrect.

DVA-C02 vs. DVA-C03: What Has Changed?

DVA-C03 retains the four-domain structure of DVA-C02, but AWS has adjusted the domain weightings, consolidated several skills, and introduced additional competencies related to AI-assisted development and AI-service security.

The most important change is that AI-related development practices are now integrated into multiple parts of the exam rather than being treated as an isolated topic.

1. Updated Exam Domain Weightings

The updated exam uses the following content domains and weightings:

Exam Domain	DVA-C02	DVA-C03
Development with AWS Services	32%	30%
Security	26%	26%
Deployment / Testing and Deployment	24%	22%
Troubleshooting and Optimization	18%	22%

Although Development with AWS Services decreases slightly in weighting, it remains an important domain. Security retains its 26% weighting, while Troubleshooting and Optimization increases from 18% to 22%. Candidates should therefore avoid concentrating exclusively on development and should devote sufficient preparation time to observability, debugging, performance, and optimization.

2. AI-Assisted Development Becomes a Core Skill

One of the most significant additions to DVA-C03 is the expectation that developers understand how AI-assisted tools can support application development.

Candidates should be familiar with using AI tools to:

• Generate and improve application code.
• Review code and identify potential defects.
• Support refactoring and code optimization.
• Perform security scanning and code review.
• Integrate managed AWS AI services into applications.

The key is to understand how these tools fit into a development workflow and how developers remain responsible for validating generated code, testing behavior, and addressing security concerns.

3. New AI-Service Security Requirements

DVA-C03 introduces a dedicated task covering security risks associated with using and integrating AI services into application development.

Important topics include managing access to AI services, protecting data transmitted to AI services, controlling model inputs and outputs, and securing AI agent interactions. Candidates should also understand how to protect sensitive information in monitoring logs.

Relevant concepts include:

• Private connectivity and data privacy controls.
• Detection and redaction of personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI).
• Protection against prompt injection and malicious input manipulation.
• Authorization of AI agent tool use.
• Session isolation and human approval for sensitive actions.
• Protection of sensitive content in logs.

These topics extend traditional application security into AI-enabled application workflows.

4. Expanded Testing and Deployment Skills

DVA-C03 combines testing and deployment into one domain, reflecting the close relationship between application validation and release management.

The updated objectives include using AI tools to generate tests, automate repetitive testing activities, analyze test results, and support regression testing. Developers should also understand container image management, containerized application deployment, and modern release strategies.

Relevant skills include preparing application artifacts, using infrastructure as code, deploying applications through AWS CI/CD services, and implementing blue/green, canary, or rolling deployment strategies.

Candidates should be able to select an appropriate deployment approach and understand how rollback mechanisms help reduce the impact of unsuccessful releases.

5. Stronger Emphasis on Troubleshooting and Optimization

Troubleshooting and Optimization increases to 22% of scored content in DVA-C03.

The updated objectives include using AI tools to analyze errors and generate troubleshooting suggestions, as well as identifying opportunities to improve performance, resource utilization, and code efficiency.

Candidates should continue to understand application logs, metrics, traces, monitoring alerts, and root-cause analysis. AI-assisted troubleshooting complements these fundamentals; it does not eliminate the need to interpret evidence and verify the underlying cause.

6. Consolidated Skills and a More Streamlined Exam Guide

AWS has also reorganized several areas of the exam guide. For example, DynamoDB-related skills that were previously listed separately have been consolidated into a more comprehensive skill. Security, testing, observability, and optimization objectives have also undergone consolidation or restructuring.

This does not mean that these subjects have become unimportant. Candidates should study the detailed DVA-C03 objectives rather than assuming that a shorter list of skills represents a reduction in exam coverage.

DVA-C03 Exam Domains and Preparation Priorities

Domain 1: Development with AWS Services — 30%

This domain covers application development using AWS services, including AWS Lambda, APIs, event-driven patterns, and data stores.

Candidates should review how to develop resilient applications, choose between synchronous and asynchronous processing, interact with AWS services through APIs and SDKs, and select appropriate data stores based on application access patterns.

Preparation should also include AI-assisted code generation and review, integration of managed AWS AI services, Lambda configuration, event handling, and DynamoDB operations.

Domain 2: Security — 26%

Security covers authentication, authorization, encryption, sensitive data management, and the security implications of AI-enabled applications.

Candidates should understand IAM roles and permissions, identity federation, presigned URLs, encryption at rest and in transit, certificate management, and secrets management. They should also study the new AI-service security task, including privacy controls, input and output filtering, and protection of AI agent interactions.

Because this domain retains a substantial weighting and includes important new content, it deserves consistent attention throughout preparation.

Domain 3: Testing and Deployment — 22%

This domain focuses on preparing application artifacts, validating application behavior, and deploying code through AWS services and CI/CD workflows.

Important topics include container images, environment-specific configuration, AWS SAM, infrastructure as code, automated testing, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, and deployment strategies.

Candidates should also understand how AI tools can support test generation, regression testing, deployment approvals, environment provisioning, and post-deployment validation.

Domain 4: Troubleshooting and Optimization — 22%

This domain evaluates the ability to diagnose application problems, use observability tools, and improve application performance.

Candidates should understand how to interpret logs, metrics, and traces, troubleshoot service integrations and deployment failures, configure monitoring alerts, and identify performance bottlenecks.

The updated exam also includes AI-assisted error analysis and optimization recommendations. Candidates should understand how to evaluate these suggestions and confirm that proposed changes address the actual problem.

How to Prepare for DVA-C03 with Practice Tests

A structured preparation plan should combine the official exam guide, hands-on development, and practice tests that cover the updated objectives.

Start with the official DVA-C03 exam guide. Review the four domains and identify the subjects that differ from your existing DVA-C02 knowledge. Pay particular attention to AI-assisted development, AI-service security, automated testing, container deployment, and the increased emphasis on troubleshooting and optimization.

Practice with AWS services. Build and test applications using services such as AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, and AWS CI/CD tools. Practical exercises help reinforce the relationships between application code, permissions, deployment configuration, and operational behavior.

Use practice tests to identify weaknesses. The DVA-C03 practice tests from PassQuestion can help you review the exam objectives through focused questions and explanations. Attempt each question before reviewing the answer, understand why the correct option fits the scenario, and revisit any concept that remains unclear.

Give additional attention to AI-related security. Understand how application developers can protect sensitive data, control access to AI services, validate inputs and outputs, secure agent tool use, and prevent sensitive information from being exposed in logs.

Review and reassess your readiness. Use repeated practice sessions to identify persistent gaps. Combine those results with AWS Skill Builder resources, official documentation, and hands-on labs rather than relying on memorization alone.

Should You Take DVA-C02 or Wait for DVA-C03?

The right choice depends on your preparation progress and the skills you want your certification to demonstrate.

If you have already prepared thoroughly for DVA-C02, taking the current exam before its November 30, 2026 deadline may be a practical option. Make sure you allow enough time to schedule the exam and review the current objectives.

If you are beginning your preparation or want to validate more current development practices, DVA-C03 is the natural version to target. It incorporates AI-assisted development, AI-service security, and updated testing, deployment, and troubleshooting skills that reflect modern cloud development workflows.

Candidates who have already studied DVA-C02 should not assume that all their previous preparation is obsolete. Core knowledge of AWS services, application security, CI/CD, and troubleshooting remains relevant. However, they should review the official comparison and address the new or reorganized objectives before taking DVA-C03.

Final Thoughts

The transition from DVA-C02 to DVA-C03 reflects a broader change in cloud development: developers are expected not only to build and deploy applications, but also to work effectively with AI-assisted tools and integrate AI capabilities securely into their solutions.

A successful preparation strategy should balance core AWS development knowledge with the updated objectives, particularly AI-service security, testing automation, modern deployment practices, and troubleshooting.

Use the latest DVA-C03 Exam Guide with Practice Test Questions from PassQuestion alongside the official AWS exam guide and hands-on practice to review the objectives, test your understanding, and identify areas for improvement before exam day.