Certification guide
The AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional (DOP-C02) is one of AWS’s two Professional-tier credentials — the senior operational certification, sitting alongside Solutions Architect – Professional as the ceiling of the AWS certification path. It validates that you can design, build, and operate the entire delivery machine that keeps modern AWS workloads shipping and running: continuous delivery pipelines, infrastructure as code, resilient multi-account architectures, monitoring and logging, incident response, and the security controls that hold it all together.
This is not the certification a developer earns as a first AWS cert. AWS’s target profile calls for at least two years of hands-on AWS experience in a DevOps role, plus fluency in a programming or scripting language, IaC, containers, and CI/CD tooling. The exam assumes you have already lived through a real incident, argued with CloudFormation about a rollback, and rewritten a canary configuration at 2 AM.
Code · DOP-C02 Level · Professional 75 questions 180 minutes Pass · 750 / 1000 Cost · $300 USD Validity · 3 years Delivery · Pearson VUE or online proctor
Questions are multiple choice and multiple response, delivered as scenario-heavy prose that describes a real DevOps situation and asks you to pick the best action or architecture. Answer options are close together on purpose — two or three will look defensible, and one will be better along the exact dimension the scenario emphasizes (blast radius, RTO, cost, rollback behavior, operational load). Ten of the seventy-five questions are unscored and used by AWS to calibrate future items; you will not know which ones. AWS reports a scaled score between 100 and 1000 with 750 as the passing mark.
Six content domains structure the blueprint. The weightings shown below are the official 2026 percentages and drive the item count for each practice set on Certifym.
SDLC Automation
Domain 1 · 22%The heaviest domain. Continuous integration and continuous delivery on AWS end-to-end: CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CodeCommit, CodeArtifact; deployment strategies (blue/green, canary, rolling, all-at-once) across EC2, ECS, EKS, and Lambda; automated testing gates; pipeline execution modes; cross-account, cross-region orchestration; and the artifact-management practices that make releases traceable.
Configuration Management and Infrastructure as Code
Domain 2 · 17%Defining infrastructure declaratively and keeping it that way. CloudFormation, AWS CDK, StackSets, Service Catalog; drift detection and recovery; AWS Systems Manager for configuration compliance and Run Command; AppConfig for runtime configuration delivery; secrets and parameters via Secrets Manager and Parameter Store; and the multi-account rollout patterns that keep environments consistent.
Resilient Cloud Solutions
Domain 3 · 15%Designing for the failure modes AWS gives you and the ones your workload creates. Multi-AZ and multi-region patterns; Auto Scaling and predictive scaling; RDS Multi-AZ, Aurora Global Database, DynamoDB Global Tables; disaster recovery strategies (backup-restore, pilot light, warm standby, active-active) and how to pick between them; SQS, DLQs, and idempotent retry; and the RTO/RPO reasoning that keeps DR planning honest.
Monitoring and Logging
Domain 4 · 15%The observability stack DevOps engineers wire up so incidents become tractable. CloudWatch metrics, alarms, composite alarms, dashboards, Logs Insights; the CloudWatch agent, Container Insights, and Application Insights; AWS X-Ray for distributed tracing; centralized log aggregation across accounts via subscription filters, Firehose, S3, and Athena; and the ingestion-versus-retention cost model.
Incident and Event Response
Domain 5 · 14%Automated and human-in-the-loop response. EventBridge event patterns and targets; Systems Manager Automation runbooks and Incident Manager; Config auto-remediation; ChatOps via AWS Chatbot; escalation plans and on-call schedules; and the design of runbooks that a tired responder can actually execute safely at 3 AM.
Security and Compliance
Domain 6 · 17%Guardrails that scale across many accounts. IAM roles, cross-account access, session-scoped permissions; AWS Organizations, Service Control Policies, and IAM Identity Center; AWS Config, Security Hub, GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie for detection and posture; KMS and Secrets Manager for encryption and secret rotation; image signing with AWS Signer; and the audit evidence that satisfies compliance without slowing releases.
Certifym publishes ten independent 65-question practice sets for DOP-C02. Each set is domain-weighted to the official DOP-C02 blueprint (D1 = 14, D2 = 11, D3 = 10, D4 = 10, D5 = 9, D6 = 11) so that a passing raw score on any set is an honest raw-score equivalent of what the real exam would ask you to do. The pass mark on each set is 75%, mapping to the real 750-of-1000 scaled score AWS uses. Questions are original and Professional-tier throughout — multiple options are defensible in every question, and exactly one is best along the dimension the scenario names, so passing depends on judgment and not luck in the heavy ones.
AWS DevOps Engineer Professional - Practice Exam
Practice exam for the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional (DOP-C02) certification. Covers SDLC automation, configuration management and infrastructure as code, resilient cloud solutions, monitoring and…
Subscribe to startFrequently asked questions about DOP-C02
What is the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional (DOP-C02) exam?
DOP-C02 is the current version of Amazon Web Services’ Professional-tier DevOps certification. It validates that you can implement and manage continuous delivery systems and methodologies on AWS, and that you can design, build, and operate resilient, secure, monitored infrastructure at scale. It is one of two AWS Professional certifications, alongside Solutions Architect – Professional.
How many questions are on the DOP-C02 exam?
The exam contains 75 questions delivered in 180 minutes. Of those, 65 are scored and 10 are unscored items AWS uses to calibrate future exams — you will not know which are which. Questions are a mix of multiple choice (one correct answer) and multiple response (two or more correct answers).
What is the passing score for DOP-C02?
The passing score is 750 out of 1000 on AWS’s scaled scoring system. The scaled score is not a raw percentage — AWS adjusts for question difficulty across exam forms — but a good working equivalent is that you should be scoring 75% or higher on high-quality practice exams to be ready for the real test.
How long is the DOP-C02 exam and how much does it cost?
The exam is 180 minutes long and costs $300 USD. You can take it at a Pearson VUE test center or via online proctoring. AWS also gives every candidate a free 50% discount voucher after passing any AWS certification, which can be applied to a future exam registration.
How hard is the DOP-C02 exam?
DOP-C02 is widely considered one of the hardest AWS certifications, on par with Solutions Architect – Professional. Questions are scenario-based and often present two or three plausible answers; passing requires judgment about which is best along a specific dimension the scenario names, such as blast radius, RTO, cost, or rollback behavior. AWS recommends at least two years of hands-on DevOps experience on AWS before attempting the exam.
What domains does DOP-C02 cover?
Six domains: SDLC Automation (22%), Configuration Management and Infrastructure as Code (17%), Resilient Cloud Solutions (15%), Monitoring and Logging (15%), Incident and Event Response (14%), and Security and Compliance (17%). SDLC Automation and Security and Compliance are the heaviest, so those should absorb the most study time.
How do I prepare for the DOP-C02 exam?
Combine hands-on practice with scenario drilling. AWS’s own study guide and official practice exam are a good baseline, and the AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional exam readiness digital course walks through each domain. On top of that, work through blueprint-weighted third-party practice sets — Certifym publishes ten original 65-question sets, one per vertical, so you see the same domains in a range of real-world contexts.
How long is the DOP-C02 certification valid?
Three years from the date you pass. AWS will notify you as your recertification window approaches. You can recertify by retaking DOP-C02 or by passing any higher-level AWS certification within the three-year window.
Does DOP-C02 recertify any other AWS certifications?
Yes. Passing DOP-C02 automatically recertifies the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate (SOA-C03), and the AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) if it is still current, resetting both to a fresh three-year window. This makes DOP-C02 an efficient recertification path for candidates already holding those associate credentials.
What is the difference between DOP-C02 and AWS Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02)?
DOP-C02 is operational — pipelines, monitoring, incident response, configuration management. SAP-C02 is architectural — designing multi-account landing zones, choosing between services, migration strategies. Many candidates hold both, since real senior AWS engineers do both jobs, but the exams draw on different bodies of knowledge.
Trademark notice & independence. Certifym.net is operated by Certifym Exam Services, LLC and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon Web Services, Inc. AWS®, Amazon Web Services®, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional®, and all related service and certification names are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. The DOP-C02 exam objectives are the property of AWS; candidates should always confirm the current exam guide, weightings, and logistics directly on the AWS Certification website before scheduling.
All questions, answers, and explanations on Certifym are original content written for practice purposes. They are not actual AWS examination questions and are not represented as such. Practicing with these materials does not guarantee a passing result on any live certification exam.