EP5: My Experience On Passing AWS Developer Certification
A real exam experience, preparation, long questions, self doubt, and practical lessons
Howdy friends,
Hope this email finds you in good health.
Today I want to share my experience of attempting the AWS Certified Developer Associate exam. I planned to write this earlier, but I was waiting for my official exam score, which caused a small delay.
I sat for the exam on December 15, 2025, and overall it was a memorable experience.
Since English is not my native language, I received extra time. The total duration for me was 170 minutes, while the standard exam time is 130 minutes. To be honest, that extra time helped a lot.
Preparation journey
For preparation, I used Stephane Maarek’s course and practice exams from Udemy. I trust his content and have been using his courses since the Cloud Practitioner level.
I also tried a course on LinkedIn Learning, but personally, I found it not detailed enough for this certification.
Stephane’s Developer Associate course is quite long, around 32 hours. This is because he goes deep into important services like CloudFormation, DynamoDB, CodePipeline and CodeDeploy, Lambda, API Gateway, and more. That depth really helps when you start thinking in real world scenarios instead of just exam questions.
I prefer writing my notes on paper and getting help from AI to explain topics in more depth.
This is how I prepared for the exam.
During Dashain and Diwali vacations, I was working from home since I had traveled to my hometown. That period gave me enough time to study, and I completed the entire course in roughly 30 days, mostly throughout October.
One reason I could finish the course within a month was that this was my third AWS certification. I had already used Stephane’s course for the Solutions Architect Associate exam, so many services and concepts were familiar. That helped me move faster through the content.
The long gap and exam booking
After completing the course, I completely closed the course materials and my notes and didn’t revise them. I stopped studying for almost a month.
In November, I was busy with a DR event at my office, which consumed most of my time.
In the first week of December, I scheduled the exam since some of my colleagues were also planning to take exams. The exam was booked by my office, and although there was a bit of peer pressure, I decided to go ahead with it.
After exam confirmation, you will receive this from AWS.
A very important note on exam environment
One important suggestion I want to share is about the exam environment.
If you have a good setup at home with stable electricity and reliable internet, taking the exam from home is fine. If not, I strongly recommend choosing a good and reputed exam center.
I am saying this from personal experience. During my Solutions Architect Associate exam, I initially chose an exam center that turned out to be a terrible choice.
The computers were old, the setup was poorly managed, and they were facing technical issues with Pearson VUE. There were not enough technical staff to fix the problems, and because of this, I had to reschedule my exam four times. Even after multiple reschedules, I still could not sit for the exam at that center.
Eventually, I changed my exam center, and the difference was huge. The new center was well managed, had proper infrastructure, and the exam experience was smooth. This taught me that the exam environment matters more than we realize.
Final week and practice tests
There was a one month gap between my continuous study period and the actual exam, and it was difficult to get back into rhythm. I had several social events and commitments at the same time, so in the final week, I focused only on practice tests.
The practice exams were good and closely matched the structure of the real exam. I attempted all six practice test sets once, and my scores ranged between 72 percent and 84 percent. After that, I reviewed only the incorrect answers and revised my notes based on weak areas.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t hit 90+, lol.
Exam day reality
With this preparation, I sat for the exam feeling confident. I initially thought it would be easier than the Solutions Architect Associate exam, but it turned out to be the opposite. I personally found the Developer Associate exam more difficult.
The questions were very long and often covered almost the entire screen. The first 15 questions went smoothly, but after that, things became challenging. I started flagging questions, and by the end, I had more than 20 questions marked for review. At one point, I genuinely felt like I might not clear the exam.
Because of the lengthy questions, while reaching question’s last line, I sometimes forgot what was mentioned at the beginning. It was mentally exhausting.
This was literally my situation during the exam (while solving a long question).
Please do not take this in a negative or demotivating way. I am just being honest about my experience. I know I lacked proper revision and also pressured myself at the last moment. I did not sleep well the night before the exam, which affected my focus.
Despite all this, I managed to pass the exam with a score of 836 out of 1000.
Certification badge
Since my exam was booked using a different email, I had to link that email with my personal email associated with Credly. After linking it, I received my badge.
If you click the Celebrate button on the badge page, it helps me experience that moment too. I never received a notification for it.
Major takeaways from this experience
Here are my lessons from this journey:
Consistency matters. Long gaps make revision much harder.
Taking notes and using AI during preparation is an effective way to learn.
Practice exams are extremely important.
The exam environment can make or break your experience.
Sleep and mental state matter.
You do not need perfect preparation to pass, but you do need honest confidence in yourself.
I hope you found this experience helpful. I would love to get your feedback on how I can improve these weekly letters.
If you think this could help someone else, please feel free to share it.
I will see you next week with another experience.
Thank you for reading.
Warm regards,
Alon Shrestha