A realistic nine-week plan at roughly 6 to 8 hours per week. Build a small serverless app as you go — it touches most of the exam.
| Week | Focus | Checkpoint |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | AWS basics, SDK, IAM for developers | You can call a service from code with a role |
| 2 | Lambda and API Gateway | You can deploy a simple API |
| 3 | DynamoDB (keys, indexes, capacity) | You can model an access pattern |
| 4 | S3, SQS, SNS, event-driven patterns | You can decouple two components |
| 5 | Security: Cognito, KMS, Secrets Manager | You can add auth and encryption |
| 6 | Deployment: SAM, CloudFormation | You can deploy with infrastructure as code |
| 7 | CI/CD: CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CodePipeline | You can build a release pipeline |
| 8 | Troubleshooting: CloudWatch, X-Ray, retries | You can debug a failing function |
| 9 | Full-length timed reviews | You consistently pass timed reviews |
Final tips
The development and security domains are nearly 60% of the exam, so weight your time there, and know DynamoDB well. Avoid “exam dump” sites — they breach AWS policy and copyright.