You can see it againUnder pressure people bring back shapes and positions long after the wording has gone.
Picture superiority · Shepard 1967, Standing 1973
MICROSOFTMicrosoft Certified:DevOps Engineer Expert
The Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert certification validates your expertise in designing and implementing DevOps solutions for continuous value delivery. It is ideal for professionals managing security, integration, testing, and deployment of Microsoft DevOps solutions. This certification highlights your ability to enhance collaboration, communication, and automation within cross-functional teams.
Exam formatMultiple choice and multiple response
Duration140 minutes
DeliveryPearson VUE
Passing score700
Free questions534
Content last reviewed 30 July 2026 · Up to date
The certification
What AZ-400 proves, and what it asks of you
What this certification covers, who it is written for, and what the exam itself looks like on the day.
5domains
15objectives
124concepts
US $165exam fee
What it is
What this certification is
What it validates, who it is written for, and the experience it assumes.
About this certification
The Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert certification validates your ability to design and implement DevOps solutions that enable continuous delivery of value. It targets professionals responsible for the security, integration, testing, delivery, deployment, monitoring, and feedback of Microsoft DevOps solutions.
Earning this certification demonstrates your expertise in designing and implementing flow of work, collaboration, communication, source control, and automation within cross-functional teams.
Who it’s for
This certification is intended for DevOps engineers, developers, and infrastructure administrators who work with Microsoft DevOps solutions. You should have experience in administering and developing in Azure, with strong skills in at least one of these areas. You should also have experience implementing both GitHub and Azure DevOps solutions.
Recommended experience
Experience in Azure administration and development, with skills in GitHub and Azure DevOps. Administering and developing in Azure; Implementing GitHub and Azure DevOps solutions
The syllabus
What you’ll learn
Every domain and objective Microsoft measures, with the weight they carry on the exam.
The official Microsoft exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
Design and implement processes and communications
- Design and implement traceability and flow of work
- Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for DevOps
- Configure collaboration and communication
Design and implement a source control strategy
- Design and implement branching strategies for the source code
- Configure and manage repositories
Design and implement build and release pipelines
- Design and implement a package management strategy
- Design and implement a testing strategy for pipelines
- Design and implement pipelines
- Design and implement deployments
- Design and implement infrastructure as code (IaC)
- Maintain pipelines
Develop a security and compliance plan
- Design and implement authentication and authorization methods
- Design and implement a strategy for managing sensitive information in automation
- Automate security and compliance scanning
Implement an instrumentation strategy
- Configure monitoring for a DevOps environment
On the day
The exam itself
Everything Microsoft publishes about sitting it, and nothing we inferred.
Prerequisites
To become a Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert, you must earn at least one of the following: Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate, Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate certification.
Exam codeAZ-400
CertificationDevOps Engineer Expert
Exam formatMultiple choice and multiple response
Duration140 minutes
Passing score700
DeliveryPearson VUE
LanguagesEnglish, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Traditional), Italian
PricingUS $165
Certification levelExpert
After you pass
Where this credential goes next
The path Microsoft lays out, how the credential is kept, and where to book.
Step-by-step path to Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert
PrerequisiteTo become a Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert, you must earn at least one of the following: Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate, Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate certification.
Credential earnedMicrosoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert Expert level certification Renewal and maintenance
Renew your certification for free by passing an online assessment. Stay current with the latest technologies and maintain your certification.
Learn more about renewal requirements Lifecycle status
This certification is currently active and available. Microsoft maintains this certification to validate current skills and industry relevance.
Exam status: ActiveMaintained by Microsoft
Exam registration
Register for the exam through Pearson VUE, Microsoft’s authorized testing partner.
Schedule your examVisit the official Microsoft certification page for exam policies and requirements.
View the official pageYour coach
And when you are serious, your coach Pip takes over
Your coach in the app reads what you have answered with the book closed and tells you one thing to do tonight. It will not count an answer you gave with the page open, and it will tell you when you are not ready.
See how the coach worksBefore you book
Questions people ask
Is any part of the AZ-400 exam hands-on or lab-based?
Yes. The exam includes performance-based tasks that simulate real-world scenarios.
If I fail AZ-400, when can I retake it?
You must wait 24 hours after a first failed attempt, and 14 days before each subsequent attempt.
What job roles does the DevOps Engineer Expert credential map to?
It aligns with roles such as DevOps engineer, site reliability engineer, and cloud engineer.
Can I recertify by passing a different Microsoft exam?
Yes. Earning a higher-level Microsoft certification can renew this credential.
Information freshness · Content last reviewed on 2026-07-30 Up to date
Practice free questions 534 questions, free, no account needed.
The curriculum
The whole exam, mapped and written
Every domain, every objective, and every concept Microsoft measures — each one written out.
5domains
15objectives
124concepts
114free pages
The domains, and what sits inside them
Every objective below is a page you can open and practise now, without an account.
The official Microsoft exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
1Design and implement processes and communications120 questions
2Design and implement a source control strategy55 questions
3Design and implement build and release pipelines221 questions
Design and implement a package management strategy7 concepts · 7 pagesOpen →Design and implement a testing strategy for pipelines13 concepts · 11 pagesOpen →Design and implement pipelines9 concepts · 7 pagesOpen →Design and implement deployments8 concepts · 4 pagesOpen →Design and implement infrastructure as code (IaC)9 concepts · 9 pagesOpen →Maintain pipelines9 concepts · 9 pagesOpen →
4Develop a security and compliance plan103 questions
5Implement an instrumentation strategy35 questions
Not a table of contents
Every line on this map already opens
In front of every objective the practice pages are already there, free and without an account. This is one objective, opened.
Design and implement traceability and flow of work7 pagesOpen →
Free in front of it
31 questions on this objective, five to a page. Every range above is a real page, open now, with no account.
Reading the map is not the same as knowing the ground
The curriculum tells you what is on the exam. Proving you know it is a different job — and it is the one the closed-book run does.
Free questions
534 questions. No account, no card.
The whole bank is open. 5 questions to a page, every answer explained, and a discussion thread on each one.
534questions
114pages
15objectives
Freealways
Browse by domain
Every objective, and every page range, is a link — so you can pick up exactly where you left off.
1Design and implement processes and communications120 questions
2Design and implement a source control strategy55 questions
3Design and implement build and release pipelines221 questions
4Develop a security and compliance plan103 questions
5Implement an instrumentation strategy35 questions
What a practice page gives you
1Five to a page
Short enough to finish, long enough to matter.
2Every answer explained
Not only which one is right — why the others are wrong.
3A discussion on each
Ask, answer, and vote. Every question has its own thread.
A question, and the idea behind it
Every question comes from a concept
These are not trivia. Each one is written against a concept in the book, so when you get one wrong there is somewhere to go and find out why.
The visual book
See it once. Carry it into the exam.
The pages shown here come from our AI-900 book — an example of how each concept is written in plain language and, where the idea needs one, drawn as a full page you can take in at a glance.
124concepts
534free questions
Why a picture, and not another paragraph
Three reasons, and each one is a real finding rather than a slogan.
You can see it againThe whole idea at onceWhere it starts, what happens in the middle, what comes out, and the mistake to avoid.
Multimedia principle · MayerThe look-alikes sit togetherThe pairs the exam tests are drawn side by side, so the difference is seen, not told.
Dual coding · PaivioWhat one page is made of
You are never asked to read a poster here — only to see how one is built. After that, every other page is legible at a glance.
1A numbered strip on top
The idea as a sequence, followed with a finger before a word is read.
2Panels for the parts
What it is, how the machine learns it, when it is the right tool.
3The trap, framed
The distinction the exam tests, given its own box instead of buried in prose.
4One line at the bottom
The sentence to carry into the exam room.
Open book, on purpose
Answer it with the picture beside you
This is the part that teaches. The illustration and the written explanation stay where they are while you work, so a scenario stops being a memory test and becomes something you can simply look at.
It teaches · it does not count
A smartphone uses AI to unlock when the owner looks at the camera. Which AI capability is being used?
AImage classification
BFacial recognition
COptical character recognition
DObject detection
Look at the five steps. Detect finds a face, align straightens it, encode turns it into numbers, search compares it with a stored face, and decide answers one question: is this the same person? Classification would only say “a face”. Detection would only draw a box. Neither decides whose.
Then the page shuts, and it starts counting
The same questions come back with the book closed — that run is the one that counts. After it, your coach picks one thing for tonight, sized to the time you have, and brings pages back before you lose them.
Testing effect · Roediger & Karpicke 2006 · spacing effect · Cepeda et al. 2006
Official resources
Straight from Microsoft
Where the exam is defined, scheduled and scored.
2official links
124concepts mapped
The source
Microsoft’s own pages
We link to them rather than repeat them, so nothing here goes stale behind them.
Checked against the source
Every objective on the official Microsoft outline already has questions here
We build from the official skills outline, not from a summary of it — 15 objectives, 124 concepts written under them, and free questions against every one. When Microsoft changes the outline, this page changes with it.
15objectives on the outline→124concepts written→534free questions
An official page tells you what will be asked. It cannot tell you what you will get right.
That is the only question worth answering the night before, and no link answers it. You answer it by taking the questions with the book closed, and seeing what comes back.