A data engineer certification offers proof that you have the right skills to do your job. Even if you’re already working in data engineering, it can provide validation of knowledge and open up new opportunities.
You can study for both data engineer associate and professional certifications with Databricks, polishing your existing skills and learning new ones as the technology evolves. Let’s take a look at why certification is important, and why Databricks offers the best certification for data engineers.
The importance of certification for data engineers
Gaining data engineer certification will help you:
Show off your talents to potential employers and clients
Create a greater impact with your current employer
Demonstrate a proactive approach to career progression
Prove that you’re fully qualified and trustworthy
Keep up with the latest developments in data engineering
Ensure you stay relevant in a quickly changing landscape
Data Engineer Associate certification
While data engineers are currently in high demand, it’s still best to have some credentials that set you apart. Having adata engineer certificationproves that you have spent time and effort acquiring new skills, and it’s rewarding too.
Whether you’re aiming to gain a data engineer certification for beginners or achieve a professional data engineer certification, Databricks can help you learn the relevant skills and pass the exam. Let’s take a look at a couple of the options.
Data Engineer Associate certification
The DatabricksData Engineer Associate certificationdemonstrates your ability to use the Lakehouse Platform for basic data engineering tasks. It verifies that you have gained a complete understanding of the platform, its tools and benefits.
Your proven skills will include building multi-hop architecture ETL pipelines using Apache Spark SQL and Python, and building production pipelines for data engineering applications and Databricks SQL queries. The exam also assesses your ability to incrementally process data and to follow best security practices.
To learn the content, candidates can take an instructor-led or self-paced Databricks Academy course online.
Learn more at Databricks Academy
Data Engineer Professional certification
The DatabricksData Engineer Professional certificationproves that you can use Databricks to perform advanced data engineering tasks. It requires an understanding of how to use the Databricks platform, plus developer tools like Apache Spark™, Delta Lake, MLflow, and the Databricks CLI and REST API.
Your proven skills will include building data processing pipelines and production pipelines, while maintaining best practices around security and governance. You’ll be assessed on modeling data management solutions, and following best practices for managing, testing and deploying code.
Candidates can learn the relevant skills via a self-paced course in the Databricks Academy. Or, if you want more guidance, we have an instructor-led course coming in2023.
Learn more at Databricks Academy
Big data engineer certification: Simplify it with Databricks
The Databricks Lakehouse Platform combines data lakes and data warehouses to create an end-to-end platform for data analysis and processing. Designed to make big data easier to use, it helps simplify tech stacks and remove data silos.
Consisting of a hosted platform (Databricks Platform) and a workspace (Databricks Workspace), Databricks is built around Apache Spark — which allows developers, data scientists and data engineers to implement their entire pipeline in one system.
As you’d expect, Databricks offers a learning path and certification that’s specific to Spark:
Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark
To become acertified Associate Developer for Apache Spark, you can take an exam that assesses your understanding of the Spark architecture. This certification proves you can apply the Spark DataFrame API to complete basic data manipulation tasks, including selecting, renaming and manipulating columns, and working with Spark SQL functions.
Databricks offers instructor-led or self-paced courses to prepare you for this exam. You’ll explore the fundamentals of Apache Spark and Delta Lake on Databricks, and learn the architectural components of Spark, the DataFrame and Structured Streaming APIs.
Learn more at Databricks Academy
Excel with Databricks certification for data engineers
A data engineer certification shows off your skill set to employers and clients — and creates greater impact. Databricks certifications demonstrate your competence in handling large data sets and pipelines, which you’ll have learned through our Academy courses.
Whether you opt for the Databricks Data Engineer Professional certification, the Associate level, or the Apache Spark Programming exam, you’ll acquire extra skills, increase your productivity and enjoy a sense of achievement.
FAQs about data engineer certification
If you’re trying to decide which data engineer certification is best for you, think about the area you want to specialize in, and about the specific needs of your customers or employers.
Whichever aspect of data engineering you choose, just make sure the certification is from an industry-recognized organization and that it delivers everything it promises. Look for reviews and statistics on the pass rate or the career paths of previous candidates.
While you don’t need to complete a course (you can just take the exam), it’s worth it in order to brush up on all the knowledge you’ll need. The Databricks Academy offers tailored learning paths for multiple roles and career paths. For example, to achieve the Data Engineer Associate certification, you can take Data Engineering with Databricks as a self-paced or instructor-led course. We also havefree overview coursesavailable, which are a great starting point if you don’t want to commit to one of the paid certifications just yet.
This depends on the training you need to undertake. Self-paced courses let you take as long as you need to study, fitting in around your other commitments. With instructor-led courses such as Databricks’ Data Engineering and Apache Spark Programming, you can choose whether you take them over two full days or four half days. Generally, the more advanced the level, the longer it will take to complete a data engineer certification course.
