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Certification Exam Cram: Databricks Data Engineer - Associate

Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Intermediate content levelIntermediate

Build confidence and boost your exam readiness

Are you ready to take the Databricks Data Engineer Associate exam? Join Derar Alhussein for this interactive event fully updated for the new 2025 exam to find out. Derar will help you gauge your preparedness for exam day, validate your knowledge of key exam topics, and help you build or fine-tune a study plan you can rely on before sitting for the test.

This event is for anyone preparing to take the Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate exam and wants to:

  • Learn effective test-taking strategies and time management techniques
  • Practice with questions that closely reflect the structure and difficulty of the actual exam
  • Review core topics like lakehouse architecture, incremental data processing, and production pipeline orchestration
  • Get answers to exam-related questions from a Databricks-certified expert
  • Build confidence and accurately assess your test readiness

Get a head start on your Databricks Data Engineer Associate exam preparation Curious about what’s in store during the Exam Cram event? We’ve included a few bonus questions to give you a preview of the challenges you’ll tackle and the knowledge you’ll gain. These questions reflect the real exam's depth and format, offering practical insights into what to expect on test day.

Sample questions:

  • A data engineer is investigating a Delta Lake table named customer_orders, which has experienced slow performance for the past week. The engineer has found that it contains too many small files, potentially contributing to these performance issues. To enhance the query performance for this table, which command should the data engineer execute?
  • A data engineer is developing a Delta Live Tables pipeline to handle data ingestion from a source system that generates events reflecting dataset changes. Each change event includes metadata indicating whether a record was inserted, updated, or deleted, along with a timestamp for ordering the events. Which command would best enable the data engineer to solve this problem?
  • A data engineer is setting up an alert in Databricks SQL to ensure timely action is taken when an anomaly is detected in a dataflow. They want to notify the data operations team when this alert is triggered. What notification destinations can the data engineer configure in Databricks SQL to send alerts to the team?

Interactive format:

This session brings you into the action. The first 50 attendees will have the option to join with video and microphone access to ask questions and interact directly with Derar and fellow attendees. You can always choose to turn off your camera or interact via chat if you prefer.

Note: Please review the O’Reilly learning platform code of conduct before attending.

About the Certification Exam Cram series

These highly interactive events help learners who’ve started preparing for the exam build confidence and increase their chances of passing. Expert instructors answer your questions and provide skill-and-drill practice while covering hot topics, challenging exam areas, and time management strategies, among other subjects.

What you’ll learn and how you can apply it

  • Use the Databricks Lakehouse Platform and its tools
  • Build ETL pipelines using Apache Spark SQL and Python
  • Incrementally process data using Apache Spark Structured Streaming, Auto Loader, and multihop architecture
  • Build production pipelines and dashboards using Delta Live Tables, Jobs, and Databricks SQL
  • Manage security permissions in Databricks, including data objects privileges, and Unity Catalog

This live event is for you because...

  • You want to become a Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate.
  • You’re new to Databricks and want to save time by learning Databricks fundamentals.
  • You’re a data engineer who wants to apply your skills to Databricks.

Prerequisites

  • Have or create a cloud account on Azure, AWS, or GCP (without an account, you’ll use the limited Community Edition of Databricks)
  • Basic SQL knowledge
  • Python programming experience
  • Familiarity with cloud fundamentals

Recommended follow-up:

Schedule

The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.

Monday, August 4, 2025, at 8:00am PT / 11:00am PT

Preparing for class (10 minutes)

  • Presentation: Rules for and approach to interaction
  • Q&A

Reviewing the exam rubric (25 minutes)

  • Presentation: Understanding the exam rubric; understanding the depth at which the exam plumbs each topic

Databricks Lakehouse Platform (15 minutes)

  • Presentation: Foundational aspects of the lakehouse architecture, Delta Lake, and relational entities in Databricks
  • Q&A
  • Break

ELT with Spark SQL and Python (10 minutes)

  • Presentation: Data transformations tasks such as querying data files, writing to tables, higher-order functions, and UDFs in Spark SQL
  • Q&A

Incremental data processing (10 minutes)

  • Presentation: Processing streaming data, including Spark Structured Streaming, incremental data ingestion from files, and the medallion architecture
  • Q&A

Production pipelines (10 minutes)

  • Presentation: Building production pipelines using Delta Live Tables (DLT) and Databricks Jobs
  • Q&A

Data governance (20 minutes)

  • Presentation: Databricks SQL; data governance with Unity Catalog; Hive metastore integration
  • Q&A
  • Break

Sample questions (45 minutes)

  • Hands-on exercise: Take 30-question quiz together as a class, with breakdown of right and wrong answers

Literal exam logistics (10 minutes)

  • Presentation: Instructions for what it’s like to take the exam and what to expect

Next steps (10 minutes)

  • Presentation: Clear instructions on what you must do between the close of this session and your exam date

Wrap-up and Q&A (15 minutes)

Your Host

Derar Alhussein

Derar Alhussein is a senior data engineer with a master's degree in data mining and the author of the O’Reilly book Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate Study Guide. He has over a decade of hands-on experience in software and data projects and currently holds eight certifications from Databricks. Derar is also an experienced instructor who has trained thousands of data engineers, helping them develop their skills and obtain professional certifications. Databricks has recognized Derar as a Databricks MVP for his strong technical skills and ongoing contributions to the data and AI community.

Skill covered

Databricks Data Engineer Associate