How I passed the Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark 3.0

I passed the Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark 3.0 certification recently with flying colors. I work as a data engineer and have experience developing data pipelines using Apache spark python API.

1. Overview

This blog is to list out all the steps I followed to get certified as a spark developer. This will be most useful for people with prior knowledge of Spark fundamentals and experience in using the Spark Dataframe API. Folks with no prior spark experience can benefit from Beginners guide to Apache Spark, a lightning-fast unified analytics engine

2. About the Certification

Certification contains 60 multiple choice questions which need to be answered in 120 minutes. One needs to score 70% to pass the certification.

The certification cost you $200 normally. Search online to see if there are discount vouchers available as part of any events or databricks marketing campaigns(I have received voucher as part of the Data+AI Summit 2022 recently and by using this, the certification cost me only $37)

More details about the certification can be found at Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark.

3. Scheduling the certification

Register for the certification here.Create an account if you don’t have one already, Sign in to the account, and then click on “Register for an Assessment”

Kryterion webassessor login screen
Select the certification exam with your choice of Programming language i.e., Python or Scala

Certification selection
Select the date and time, acknowledge the terms by selecting the checkbox and then click on “Select”
Enter a discount voucher code (if you have any), Verify the total amount, and click on “Checkout”.
Complete the payment and you will receive a purchase confirmation email.

4. Hands-on & Practice Exam

Create a Databricks Community Edition account. Practice the data frame API’s usage with the help of databricks notebooks.
Try to complete the practice exam for your language of choice: Python or Scala.

You are good to attempt the certification if you scored 90% or above in the practice exam. The nature of the questions in the actual certification exam is more similar to that of the practice exam.

If you are scoring less than 90% in the practice exam, you may need to prepare more. Please see Beginners guide to Apache Spark, a lightning-fast unified analytics engine

Ensure to use the respective test aid of your language of choice while attending the practice exam : Python or Scala. This is required to get familiarized with the documentation to answer some of the questions and it will help in the actual certification.

Test Aid

5. Taking the certification

You will get an email from KRYTERION a few days before the exam with the pre-requisite (You need to install software and complete a biometric step)
Certification exam link will be available 15 minutes before the scheduled time.
Status of the exam will be displayed on the screen as soon as you complete the exam. However, it will take a few days to get the official result from databricks via email

6. Points to remember

Be aware of rescheduling policies: At the time of writing this blog, You can reschedule the assessment with greater than twenty-four (24) hours’ notice. It is chargeable otherwise.
Familiarize using the test aid aka Spark documentation: Test aid will be visible in the right pane of the exam window and there is no CTRL + F available for searching. If you are not sure which section of the test aid contains certain information, you will end up scrolling a lot during the exam which will consume a lot of time and you won’t be able to complete the exam in 2 hours. The exam UI is not that user-friendly as well.
Expect challenges in completing assessment pre-requisites: It is always stressful when you face last-minute technical challenges. I had challenges in completing the biometric step from my device and had to spend many hours with the support team over chat to get that step done. Be ready to face these kinds of setbacks on the day of the exam. However, the support folks are helpful and will be able to guide you even if this happens.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for spending your time. Until the next post, thanks for reading.

Stay motivated.

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