Suggestion: Use RDS Blue/Green deployment to restore a snapshot

Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments could be a good alternative to your current process, though it's not specifically designed for snapshot restoration across environments.

Blue/Green Deployments create a staging environment (green) that mirrors your production environment (blue), keeping them in sync. This approach would allow you to:

1. Create a Blue/Green deployment of your dev environment
2. Apply the production snapshot to the green environment
3. Test that everything works correctly
4. Switch over with minimal downtime (typically under one minute)

The main advantages would be:

• Reduced downtime for your dev environment
• Simplified switchover process
• No need to manually rename databases
• Built-in switchover guardrails for safety

However, there are some considerations:

• Blue/Green Deployments are supported for RDS for MariaDB, MySQL, and PostgreSQL (versions 11.1 and higher)
• For Aurora PostgreSQL, it's supported for version 11 and higher
• The feature is designed primarily for database updates rather than cross-environment refreshes

If you're using a supported database engine and version, this approach could streamline your process. Otherwise, scripting your current workflow using AWS CLI or SDK might be your best option to automate the manual steps.
Sources
Using Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments for database updates - Amazon Relational Database Service
Upgrade strategies for Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 12 | AWS Database Blog
Supported Regions and DB engines for Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments - Amazon Relational Database Service
Implement a rollback strategy for Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL upgrades using Amazon RDS Blue/Green deployments | AWS Database Blog