Microsoft Azure Developer Associate
225 practice questions
Last reviewed: April 2026
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AZ-204 validates the day-to-day skills of an Azure developer: writing application code that runs on App Service, Functions, Container Apps, and AKS; storing data in Cosmos DB and Azure Storage; integrating with Service Bus, Event Grid, and Event Hubs; and securing solutions with Microsoft Entra and Key Vault. It targets professional developers with at least one to two years of programming experience and existing Azure exposure. The exam is heavier on code and SDK fluency than AZ-104: expect 40–60 questions in 100 minutes including code-completion drag-and-drop, hot-area, multiple-response, and at least one case study with scenario-driven items.
Largest domain at 30%. App Service (deployment slots, scaling, configuration), Azure Functions (triggers, bindings, durable functions), Container Apps, ACR, and AKS basics for developers. Heavy on choosing the right compute target.
About 19%. Azure Blob Storage (SDK, SAS, lifecycle, tiers), Cosmos DB SDK (consistency levels, partitioning, change feed, RU sizing, indexing). Code-completion drag-and-drops are common here.
About 18%. Microsoft Entra authentication in code (MSAL), managed identities, OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect flows, Microsoft Graph, Key Vault for secrets and certificates, and shared access signatures.
About 8%. Application Insights (custom telemetry, sampling, dependency tracking), Azure Monitor logs, distributed tracing, and basic Log Analytics queries (KQL). Lowest weight but tight, focused questions.
About 25%. API Management, Event Grid vs. Event Hubs vs. Service Bus, Azure Cache for Redis, Logic Apps, and event-driven / messaging architecture decisions. Choosing the right integration service is the core skill tested.
Services you'll encounter on the exam and why each one matters.
Managed PaaS host for web apps, APIs, and containers with deployment slots, autoscale, custom domains, and Easy Auth identity integration.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 (Develop Azure Compute Solutions) treats App Service as the default PaaS landing zone — expect questions on slot swaps, scale-out rules, app settings, and CI/CD from GitHub Actions / Azure DevOps.
Serverless event-driven compute with triggers (HTTP, Timer, Queue, Blob, Cosmos DB, Service Bus, Event Grid, Event Hub) and Consumption / Premium / Flex Consumption hosting plans.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 is heavily Functions-focused — function.json bindings, durable orchestrations, hosting-plan trade-offs, and managed-identity-based output bindings are repeated question patterns.
Serverless container platform built on Kubernetes + Dapr + KEDA with scale-to-zero, revisions, traffic splitting, and managed ingress for microservices.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 distinguishes Container Apps (serverless microservices, scale-to-zero) from AKS (full Kubernetes) and ACI (single container) — Container Apps is the AZ-204 default for event-driven services.
Managed Kubernetes with node pools, cluster autoscaler, Entra-integrated workload identities, and ACR pull integration for container-first dev workflows.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 covers AKS workload identity, deployment manifests, and Helm-based packaging — AZ-204 expects the developer perspective (consuming AKS, not operating it).
Globally distributed multi-model NoSQL database with NoSQL/MongoDB/Cassandra/Gremlin/Table APIs, configurable consistency levels, change feed, and provisioned/serverless throughput.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 (Connect to and Consume Services) tests partition-key design, consistency-level trade-offs, change-feed consumers, and SDK retry policies on Cosmos DB.
Unified storage account for Blob (block / append / page), Queue (lightweight messaging), and Table (NoSQL key-attribute) services with access tiers, lifecycle policies, and SAS tokens.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 2 (Develop for Azure Storage) is anchored on this trio — expect SDK upload / download / lease patterns, SAS-token generation, and Event Grid notification subscriptions.
Enterprise message broker with queues, topics + subscriptions, sessions, dead-letter queues, scheduled messages, and transactional support across operations.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 contrasts Service Bus (FIFO sessions, transactions, advanced routing) against Storage Queues (simple, cheap) and Event Grid (event-driven) — a recurring AZ-204 distractor triplet.
Fully managed event-routing service with topics, system topics, CloudEvents 1.0 schema, and push delivery to Functions, Logic Apps, Web Hooks, and Event Hubs.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 expects Event Grid as the reactive glue between Azure resources (Blob created → Function) and as the schema validator for custom-topic publishers.
PaaS relational database (single database, elastic pool, managed instance) with vCore / DTU sizing, Always Encrypted, columnstore indexes, and built-in HA.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 tests SDK connection patterns, connection-string secret retrieval, retry policies (transient-fault handling), and managed-identity-based authentication from app code.
Managed Redis OSS / Enterprise cache with sub-millisecond latency, persistence, geo-replication, and OSS data-structures (lists, sorted sets, streams) for session and read-through caching.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 expects cache-aside, write-through, and lazy-loading patterns as the canonical answer to "reduce SQL / Cosmos latency" scenarios.
API gateway with developer portal, policy expressions (rate-limit, transform, cache, validate-jwt), product/subscription bundling, and revisions/versions for API lifecycle.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 names APIM as the front door for exposing Functions / App Service APIs — policy-expression XML, JWT validation, and OAuth flows are tested.
Centralized configuration store with feature flags, point-in-time snapshots, Key Vault references, and SDK-side caching via the configuration provider for .NET / Java / Python / Node.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 + Domain 5 test App Configuration vs. Key Vault choice (configuration vs. secrets) and the feature-flag rollout workflow with `Microsoft.FeatureManagement`.
Managed real-time messaging that offloads WebSocket connections from app servers, with auto-scaling, broadcast / group / direct messaging, and serverless mode for Functions.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 covers SignalR serverless integration with Functions and the SignalR output binding — the canonical AZ-204 real-time push pattern.
Unified REST API for Microsoft 365 data — users, groups, mail, calendar, files, Teams, and Entra ID directory — with delegated and application permissions over OAuth 2.0.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 expects Graph for app-side user/group/directory queries and for permission-scoped access to Office 365 data; delegated-vs-application permission flow is a frequent question.
Managed Docker registry with geo-replication, ACR Tasks (build/test/patch), content trust, vulnerability scanning, and Entra-RBAC + managed-identity pull from AKS / Container Apps / App Service.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 + Domain 3 (Security) test ACR Tasks for CI builds and managed-identity-based image pulls without admin credentials.
High-throughput streaming-ingest service with Kafka protocol compatibility, partitioned event streams, capture to Blob/ADLS, and AMQP-based consumer groups.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 5 contrasts Event Hubs (telemetry stream, millions of events/sec) with Event Grid (discrete events) and Service Bus (transactional messaging) — the canonical AZ-204 ingest tier.
Cloud identity directory with app registrations, service principals, system / user-assigned managed identities, OAuth 2.0 + OIDC flows, and conditional-access integration.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 3 (Implement Azure Security) is largely Entra ID — managed identities for App Service / Functions / VMs, MSAL token acquisition, app-only vs delegated permissions, and on-behalf-of flows.
Managed store for secrets, certificates, and HSM-backed keys with Entra-RBAC access, soft-delete + purge protection, and SDK / App Service / Functions reference integration.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 3 expects Key Vault as the default secret store — managed-identity-based retrieval, certificate rotation, and Key Vault references in App Service settings are core AZ-204 patterns.
APM and observability — distributed tracing, dependency tracking, live metrics, custom events, KQL-queryable logs in a Log Analytics workspace, and built-in availability tests.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 4 (Monitor and Troubleshoot Azure Solutions) is anchored on App Insights — auto-instrumentation, custom telemetry, end-to-end transaction details, and Smart Detection alerts dominate the domain.
Role-based access control with built-in / custom roles scoped to management group / subscription / resource group / resource, plus Conditional Access for sign-in risk and device-state gates.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 3 covers least-privilege role assignment to managed identities, custom-role JSON authoring, and Conditional Access policies that gate developer-facing app access.
$100k–$140k–$195k USD annual
Range covers US-based mid-to-senior backend developers where Azure proficiency is required. FAANG / fintech / Microsoft-partner senior roles often clear $220k TC. Cert is a screening signal; demonstrated open-source / production experience drives the high end.
Source: levels.fyi 2025 backend / cloud developer roles, U.S. BLS OEWS May 2024 (15-1252 software developers), Glassdoor 2025. Figures are approximate; actual compensation depends on role, region, and experience.
AZ-204 is the standard hiring signal for Azure-centric backend developer openings, particularly in Microsoft-aligned shops (financial services, healthcare, government, ISVs). Recruiters use it to filter candidates who can credibly discuss App Service vs. Functions tradeoffs, durable functions, Cosmos DB partitioning, and Microsoft Entra authentication flows. It pairs commonly with AZ-400 (DevOps Engineer Expert) for senior platform roles and with AZ-305 for developer-to-architect transitions. Candidates with a .NET or TypeScript background tend to find AZ-204 more natural than those coming from Java or Python, given Microsoft's SDK emphasis.
There are no formal prerequisites. Microsoft recommends one to two years of professional development experience and prior hands-on Azure exposure. While AZ-900 is not required, candidates with no Azure background should plan to take it first — many AZ-204 questions assume Azure-platform fluency.
Proficiency in at least one of C#, JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, or Java is essentially required: code-completion drag-and-drops show real SDK snippets, and Microsoft's study material is heaviest on .NET examples. The official Microsoft Learn path covers all five domains in roughly 35–45 hours; expect to spend additional time in a personal Azure subscription writing throwaway Functions, App Services, and Cosmos DB code. The exam rewards candidates who have actually shipped Azure SDK code rather than read about it.
AZ-204 sits in the Associate tier and is widely considered one of the harder Azure associate exams — peers usually rank it above AZ-104 in difficulty because of the code-completion items. Plan on 80–120 hours of study over 8–12 weeks with professional dev experience; longer if Azure is your first cloud. The exam runs about 100 minutes with 40–60 questions in multiple-choice, multiple-response, drag-and-drop (including code-completion), hot-area, and case-study formats. Case studies are timed separately and cannot be revisited.
The most common stumbling blocks are durable functions patterns (function-chaining, fan-out/fan-in, monitor, human-interaction), Cosmos DB partition-key and consistency-level tradeoffs, and Microsoft Entra OAuth flows in code. The messaging-vs-eventing distinction (Service Bus vs. Event Grid vs. Event Hubs) is a frequent trap on scenario questions.
Most recent skills-measured update. Added Container Apps coverage, expanded Microsoft Entra and managed-identity material, refreshed Cosmos DB and storage SDK content. Microsoft refreshes AZ-204 approximately every 12–18 months without changing the exam code.
Rebalanced weights to emphasize secure development and integration; renamed Azure AD references to Microsoft Entra ID; added durable functions deep coverage.
Initial GA, replacing the AZ-203 exam. Original launch outline focused on App Service, Functions, Cosmos DB, and Storage.
AZ-204 (Microsoft Azure Developer Associate) is a a moderately difficult exam expecting practical hands-on experience plus solid understanding of best practices Associate-level exam. Most candidates need 80–150 hours of study spread over 6–12 weeks for associate-level exams. Most candidates who score consistently above the passing threshold on practice exams pass on their first attempt.
Most candidates need 80–150 hours of study spread over 6–12 weeks for associate-level exams. Time-to-pass varies widely by prior experience. Engineers with hands-on production experience in the underlying technology typically need less; candidates new to the platform should plan toward the upper end of that range.
AZ-204 is a recognized credential in the Azure ecosystem and signals validated knowledge to employers, recruiters, and clients. Whether it is worth the time and fee for you depends on your role and goals — it tends to pay off most for cloud engineers, architects, and consultants who work with Azure day-to-day or want to move into roles that do.
The passing score for AZ-204 is 700 / 1000. The exam contains 50 questions and lasts 1 hr 40 min.
The AZ-204 exam fee is $165 USD. Fees are set by Azure and may vary by region; always confirm the current price on the official Azure certification page before booking.
Microsoft role-based certifications expire after 1 year but can be renewed for free via an unproctored online assessment on Microsoft Learn, starting 6 months before expiration.
Yes. You can take the exam online (proctored via the provider's secure browser, available 24/7 in most regions) or at an in-person Pearson VUE test center during business hours. Both formats use the same questions, time limit, and passing score.
CertLabPro provides 15 study modes across the practice question bank for AZ-204. The exam-simulation mode mirrors the real exam: 50 questions in 1 hr 40 min, with the same passing threshold of 700 / 1000. Browse mode lets you read every Q&A statically.