AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional and AWS Certified Developer Associate are both getting new versions. If you've sat either exam before, the new blueprints look pretty different. Full details from AWS here.
This is the third AWS exam update in three weeks. MLA-C02 added generative AI and agentic workloads to the ML Engineer Associate exam first. Then AIB-C01 launched as a brand new non-technical AI cert. Now it's landed on two of AWS's most-taken exams.
SAP-C03
Same five domains as before: cloud-native architecture, security and governance, cost optimization, resilience and migration, operational excellence. A lot of new material lands underneath them though.
Generative AI and agentic architecture alone picks up 11 new skills: Bedrock, AI agent design, RAG patterns, Bedrock Guardrails. Resilience engineering gets its own cluster, built around AWS Fault Injection Service and Resilience Hub.
The real signal is post-quantum cryptography, tested through AWS KMS support for ML-DSA and ML-KEM encryption. That's showing up on a professional architecture exam years before quantum computing is an actual threat to anyone's infrastructure. AWS wants architects planning key rotation and encryption migration paths while the deadline still feels theoretical.
Registration opens October 27, 2026. SAP-C02 stays bookable through November 16. SAP-C03 goes live November 17. 180 minutes, 75 questions, $300.
DVA-C03
Same four domains and weights: development 30%, security 26%, testing and deployment 22%, troubleshooting 22%. What's inside them changed a lot.
There's a brand new task statement just for AI security. It covers locking down access to AI services, filtering prompt injection attempts, and securing how agents talk to each other. Container work (ECR, ECS, EKS, Fargate) got folded in too, along with newer services like Amazon Q, Bedrock AgentCore, and Kiro.
Prompt engineering, RAG design, and model selection are explicitly out of scope. This exam sticks to securing and integrating AI services that already exist.
Registration also opens October 27, 2026. DVA-C02 runs through November 30. DVA-C03 goes live December 1. 130 minutes, 65 questions (50 scored), 720 to pass.
Already hold SAP-C02 or DVA-C02? Nothing changes. Your credential stays active through its original expiration date either way.
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What to do
Sitting SAP-C02 or DVA-C02 soon? Book it now. Don't switch material this late.
A few months from exam-ready? Hold off until the official C03 guides publish October 27. Don't study off early recaps, this one included.
Haven't started yet? Wait the six weeks. Starting on C02 material now just means re-learning a chunk of it in November.
The pattern here
Three AWS exam updates in three weeks, and none of them are ML certs on paper. A solutions architect exam and a developer exam just picked up AI security, agent design, and Bedrock as tested material. If you build or design on AWS, AWS just moved those skills onto your exam blueprint.
Keep Learning and Building.