Category: Certification

My little intro – well, skip this as it might be boring 🙁

Let’s start with a little bit of background to my somewhat unorthodox journey into Azure Developer cert way back in 2018.

Three years ago, I got a beta exam invite for Azure Core Developer (AZ-200) certification. At the time, there were no readily availiable study materials to learn from and prepare. My focus was on the exam objectives document, with a special highlight on Azure services that I did not have a chance to work with.

Long story short, at the end of the exam I did not know if it was a PASS ✅ or not ❌, as it was a beta exam. However, good and somewhat unexpected “pass news” with a cert email came back in 2 months. I was over the moon 🌜 and delighted to be one of the few candidates to succeed. Later, this exam was retired, as most cert nowadays…

Back to the current time, Feb 2021

Today, I was feeling excited & pumped to go after Azure Developer cert (AZ-204) 🏃‍♂️🚴‍♂️🏊‍♂️💪 – and yes, I posted earlier that I will share the result – either pass or fail.

Well, the good news is – I did not have to wait 2 months to learn the result 😃 It was a pass – and not an easy one though, as there were 60% more materials and more detail oriented questions on different inner workings of Azure services.

Let’s give a round of applause 👏👏👏 to Microsoft Learn modules and Learning path tracks – as they are getting better and better – and help me to cover this material in a somewhat fun way….

How was my actual exam experience?

The overall experience was exciting 😲 and scary 😱 at the same time. Mainly, because of the two case studies appearing at different sections of the exam. Well, at the end of the exam I shared this non pleasant experience by providing feedback ✍. I think every exam participant should be willing to share their experience, as it will be a good set of metrics for exam creators to assess and modify the exam experience to make it better overall.

Speaking about the exam, I got approximately 50 questions❔; where two case studies contained approx. 5-7 questions each. My surprise was to discover 👀, one case study right in the beginning, and another one right at the end of the exam. It threw my timing a little bit off.

So, be prepared to save enough time for exam case studies (yes, there might be more than one, and I had three in the Microsoft exams last year), no matter what, as they consume a considerable chunk of your time and could cause your brain to start steaming ♨ – due to time constraints.

If you are a Cloud Solutions Architect (aka, CSA) you may find certain questions too technical in nature, like knowing the exact sequence of operations to place each task correctly. Well, if you never played with that specific feature then don’t panic. Just focus on the question and use your #quizskills. As an example: I had several educated guesses ⁉ – on what might be the right order of operations without knowing 100%.

In the real world, you could easily find your way with a quick search on your favorite engine… but an exam is an exam… and you are not penalized for wrong answers.

Good news is: a certain number of questions are high level, and your current CSA experience will be very handy; like assessing/suggesting the workload for the most effective Azure service or solution based on customer requirements.

Exam duration is180 minutes⏰ or 220 min including the feedback time. Generally speaking, this should be enough with a small caveat: You have to plan your time carefully and watch for the exact # of potential questions and remaining case studies of the exam. That said, there were several questions with true/false options, many drag-and-drop scenarios, and multi-select choices that seemed easy and tricky at the same time.

Where should I start my Azure Developer journey?

The official exam page AZ-204 is a really good place to start. Followed by the suggested learning track and modules in the bottom of the page.

The exam page AZ-204 gets even better with a final section on “Exam resources“. I consider this section a REAL “gem” 💎💎💎

Dear friends, stay tuned – as your information on how to earn a #free exam voucher is included in this post. Look into Microsoft’s “Cloud Skills Challenge” program below.

Any other tips or resources for study?

• GitHub repo on AZ-204 Reference documentation
• Assesses and test your Azure Developer skills with Pluralsight IQ Skills
• Official AZ-204 Measure up practice test

Labs and practice material suggestions

• Reference to the AZ-204 lab exercises GitHub repo
• Quick start references on Microsoft Docs

FREE exam voucher through Microsoft Cloud Skills Challenge (Expired – Not a Valid anymore)

For a limited time, Microsoft Learn provides a free, interactive way of learning by combining short step-by-step tutorials, browser-based interactive coding and scripting environments, and task-based achievements to help you advance your technical skills while earning achievements.

What are you waiting for? Register today via this link 👍

That is it folk, I tried to share and illustrate my exam experiences in this post. I hope you will find it helpful and apply to your “Azure developer” certification journey.

Please, feel free to share your experience or thoughts, as i am planning to keep this post up to date with your contributions going forward. #keeplearning

Stay safe and be the 4th with you … #nevergiveup #keeppushing