In early March 2025, I earned my second AWS certification: the AWS Certified Developer – Associate. This built on the foundation I laid with the Solutions Architect – Associate, but with a much deeper dive into serverless development, event-driven design, and developer tooling on AWS.
Instead of creating a new section, I’ve continued updating and expanding the existing AWS knowledge collection with Developer-specific topics, keeping everything in one place for a cohesive learning path.
🔥 Focus: Serverless, APIs, and Automation
This certification emphasized building, securing, and deploying cloud-native applications—especially using AWS’s serverless offerings. I focused my preparation on:
- AWS Lambda
Building scalable, efficient functions with environment configs, permissions, and concurrency controls. - API Gateway
Integrating REST and WebSocket APIs with Lambda, adding request transformations, and securing endpoints with JWT-based custom authorizers. - EventBridge & SQS/SNS
Designing event-driven applications using EventBridge rules, SQS queues, DLQs, and SNS topics to decouple and scale workflows. - CI/CD Automation
Automating deployments with CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and SAM templates—integrated with Git-based workflows. - Observability & Debugging
Using CloudWatch Logs, metrics, alarms, and X-Ray to trace Lambda executions, API behavior, and message flow through event pipelines.
📝 Developer Topics Now in AWS
I’ve integrated all new Developer Associate–relevant material directly into the existing AWS notes section, including updates to:
- Serverless
Expanded to include advanced Lambda patterns, handler design tips, concurrency tuning, and architectural diagrams. - DevTools
New content added covering CodePipeline, CodeBuild setups for serverless projects, and how to define full workflows using SAM CLI. - Database Storage
Now includes DynamoDB tips relevant for developers—indexes, partition key planning, TTL, and DynamoDB Streams with Lambda triggers. - Security and Compliance
More examples of IAM roles for Lambda, scoped permissions for developer workflows, and secure access patterns for Parameter Store & Secrets Manager.
🙌 Final Thoughts
The Developer Associate certification challenged me in new ways—from writing code to managing real-world deployments. It’s more than theory—it’s how AWS apps are actually built. If you’re studying or just exploring serverless, feel free to explore my updated AWS section, or reach out with questions or feedback.