Forge Your Career Path with Best Data Engineering Certifications

Discover the significance of data engineering certifications, the different types available, benefits of certification and how it can advance your career. | ProjectPro

Forge Your Career Path with Best Data Engineering Certifications
 |  BY Daivi

AWS or Azure? Cloudera or Databricks? With so many data engineering certifications available , choosing the right one can be a daunting task. Whether you are just starting your career as a Data Engineer or looking to take the next step, this blog will walk you through the most valuable data engineering certifications and help you make an informed decision about which one to pursue. 


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There are over 133K data engineer job openings in the US, but how will you stand out in such a crowded job market? The answer is- by earning professional data engineering certifications! Professional certifications can offer data engineers a competitive advantage and help them build or advance their careers. These certifications assess a person's knowledge and abilities against vendor and industry benchmarks. They also demonstrate to potential employers that the individual possesses the skills and knowledge to create and implement business data strategies. But with several big data certifications available in the market, it often gets confusing for data engineers to pick the right one for themselves. Don’t worry! This blog covers the most valuable data engineering certifications worth paying attention to in 2023 if you plan to land a successful job in the data engineering domain. 

Why Are Data Engineering Skills In Demand?

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The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2025, 463 exabytes of data will be produced daily across the world. Exabytes are 10006 bytes, so to put it into perspective, 463 exabytes is the same as 212,765,957 DVDs. Due to the enormous amount of data being generated and used in recent years, there is a high demand for data professionals, such as data engineers, who can perform tasks such as data management, data analysis, data preparation, etc. The Dice Tech Job Report lists data engineering as one of the fastest-growing tech careers, with its demand increasing by over 50% annually. Over 341,000 jobs in the US list Data Engineering as one of the mandatory skill requirements. These statistics clearly indicate a significant rise in the demand for data engineering skills among organizations worldwide.

Although challenging, a career in data engineering can be rewarding. Data engineers and their skills play a crucial role in the success of an organization by making it easier for data scientists, data analysts, and decision-makers to access the data they need to do their jobs. Businesses rely on the knowledge and skills of data engineers to deliver scalable solutions to their clients. Furthermore, data security will become more crucial as more businesses rely on data for decision-making. Data engineering skills will be crucial for designing and implementing security solutions to safeguard data from breaches and other risks.

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Benefits of Pursuing Data Engineering Certifications

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A professional certification validates your skills and knowledge compared to predefined benchmarks to demonstrate to potential employers that you possess the necessary skill set. A professional certification validates that the individual is a qualified professional, not just someone seeking to build a career in data engineering. If a data engineer has gained one or more certifications, he or she will have an advantage over competitors. Certifications can be a successful alternative for work experience for beginner-level data engineers. Furthermore, If you want to enhance your data engineering skills, a professional certificate gives you the recognition that will qualify you for jobs and raise your chances of landing well-paying data engineering positions.

Here are some key benefits of pursuing data engineering certifications-

Data engineering certifications can lead to higher income and better career opportunities because they demonstrate your knowledge and dedication to your field. One of the biggest advantages of earning a professional big data engineer certification is that it boosts your chances of getting promoted at your current organization while opening new job prospects. The Global Knowledge 2022 IT Skills and Pay Survey indicates that certified professionals often have higher salaries than those without certifications. For instance, with a projected average annual salary of $171,749, the GCP Professional Data Engineer certification was the top-paying one on this list in 2021.

You can keep up with the newest technology and best practices in the industry by earning data engineering certifications. A professional certificate can also offer a well-structured learning path to improve your understanding of specific technologies or professional skills. You master the techniques and strategies required to accomplish a challenging task efficiently by pursuing these certifications. For instance, earning an AWS data engineering professional certificate can teach you efficient ways to use AWS resources within the data engineering lifecycle, significantly lowering resource wastage and increasing efficiency. Hence, acquiring the right professional certificate will offer you the skillset needed to perform a task easily.

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The demand for data engineers will continue to skyrocket in the coming years as data grows significantly. Therefore, earning the right professional certificate will offer you a competitive edge. For instance, your willingness to pursue valuable data engineering certifications and your ability to acquire new skills will keep you one step ahead of your competitors. Thus, getting a certification that matches your goals and skill set is important to remain ahead of the competition and boost your career growth.

Different Types of Data Engineering Certifications

There are mainly two categories of data engineer certifications- 

We will walk you through these categories of certifications to help you decide which data engineering certification is best for you.

Vendor-Specific Data Engineering Certifications

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The vendor-specific data engineer certifications help you enhance your knowledge and skills relevant to specific vendors, such as Azure, Google Cloud Platform, AWS, and other cloud service vendors. This section mainly focuses on the three most valuable and popular vendor-specific data engineering certifications- AWS, Azure, and GCP.

AWS Data Engineering Certifications

AWS offers the AWS Certified Big Data - Specialty certification for anyone who wants to acquire the essential knowledge of AWS data analytics technologies and services and become an AWS-certified data engineer.

AWS Certified Big Data - Specialty

AWS Certified Big Data

An excellent way to advance your career in data engineering is to earn the AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty certification. AWS Certification demonstrates to potential employers that you possess the technical know-how to conduct complex data analytics tasks using fundamental AWS data analytics services like Amazon EMR, Redshift, and QuickSight. With this certification, you may demonstrate your proficiency in data analysis, collection, storage, processing, visualization, and security. This certification is ideal for professionals with at least two years of experience using AWS technology.

The exam has a multiple-choice question format with a total duration of 170 minutes. The registration fee for the AWS Certified Big Data- Specialty certification exam is 300 USD, and it can only be taken in a physical exam center. The exam is available in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

Azure Data Engineering Certifications

Microsoft Azure offers two significant data engineering certifications- Azure Data Fundamentals DP-900 and Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203.

1. Azure Data Fundamentals DP-900 Certification

Azure Data Fundamentals DP-900 Certification

The Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals certification demonstrates that you have a solid understanding of the Azure core concepts and how to implement them when utilizing the data services offered by Azure. The certification gives you the technical know-how to work with cloud computing systems. By mastering the fundamentals, you can advance professionally and pursue other technical opportunities with Azure, such as Associate Azure Data Engineer, Associate Azure Database Administrator, etc.

The exam duration is 120 minutes, which includes a preparation time of 30 minutes. A score of 700 is required to pass the Azure Data Fundamentals exam, graded on a scale of 1 to 1000. The Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals DP-900 certification registration fee is $99 USD. You can schedule the exam and register on the official website by selecting Pearson VUE or Certiport (mostly for students and teachers). The exam is conducted in many languages, including Chinese, English, Korean, German, Spanish, French, and Japanese.

2. Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 Certification

Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 Certification

Becoming a successful Microsoft Certified Azure Data Engineer Associate requires acquiring the Azure Data Engineer Associate certification. Earlier, the certification included two exams- DP-200 and DP-201- that evaluated the various skills of Azure data engineers. Microsoft introduced the Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure DP 203 certification exam in June 2021 to replace the earlier two exams. This professional certificate demonstrates one's abilities to integrate, analyze, and transform various structured and unstructured data for creating effective data analytics solutions.

The registration fee for the Microsoft Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 certification is $165. The rest of the exam details are the same as the DP-900 exam.

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GCP Data Engineer Certification

GCP Data Engineer Certification

The Google Cloud Certified Professional Data Engineer certification is ideal for data professionals whose jobs generally involve data governance, data handling, data processing, and performing a lot of feature engineering on data to prepare it for modeling. The professionals whose everyday duties involve gathering, transforming, and distributing data for data-driven decision-making should obtain this professional certificate as it will help them stand out from the competitors. Three years of professional experience is necessary for this certification, with at least one of those years spent designing and implementing Google Cloud solutions.

Candidates must pass a Google-conducted exam to become a Google Cloud Certified Professional Data Engineer. This exam may be taken remotely via an online proctoring facility or at one of the authorized exam locations worldwide. Candidates must pay a $200 USD reservation fee for the Google Professional data engineer exam. You can take the exam in either English or Japanese languages.

Eligibility Criteria for Vendor-Specific Data Engineering Certifications

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The eligibility criteria for vendor-specific data engineering certifications differ for each cloud service vendor-

The minimum requirements for taking the AWS Big Data Specialty certification exam include the following-

    • A minimum of two years of AWS experience and five years of experience in data analytics.

    • Candidates must be AWS Certified Cloud Practitioners or have one of the following Associate-level certifications: AWS Certified Developer, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, or AWS Certified SysOps Administrator.

    • Knowledge of the definition and architecture of AWS Big Data services and their function in the data engineering lifecycle, including data collection and ingestion, data analytics, data storage, data warehousing, data processing, and data visualization.

    • Expertise in creating scalable and efficient data processing architectures and also, monitor data processing systems.

The eligibility criteria for the two Azure data engineering certifications are below-

    • Azure Data Fundamentals DP-900 Certification

      • Possessing a fundamental understanding of or proficiency in acquiring and selling cloud solutions.

      • Expertise in leveraging cloud platforms, data services, and solutions.

      • Basic understanding of the developments in the IT industry.

      • Basic understanding of Microsoft Azure.

    • Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 Certification

An individual is fit for taking the GCP Data Engineering certification exam if he/she-

    • Has more than three years of prior data engineering experience, including at least one year of solution design and management using Google Cloud.

    • Can efficiently extract data and then transform and publish it for data-driven decision-making.

    • Can design, develop, and implement high-quality data processing systems and machine learning solutions.

Preparation Tips for Vendor-Specific Data Engineering Certifications

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Here are a few preparation tips you must follow while pursuing vendor-specific data engineering certifications.

The first step towards preparing for any vendor-specific certification exam is to choose the right and suitable learning approach. 

    • AWS: If you are preparing for the AWS data engineering certification exam, you will have several options (free and paid) to help you with the preparation. You can use the Exam Prep digital course offered by the AWS Skill Builder, each of which covers an exam's various topics and goes over sample certification questions for each domain. Also, you can try out the free Practice Question Sets to have a better understanding of the exam format. Take a comprehensive Official Practice Exam once you are prepared. 

    • Azure: The platform offers two learning approaches- self-paced and instructor-led training. You can opt for either of these approaches depending on your requirements. You will also get access to study guides for each certification exam to help you understand the key topic areas you must focus on. Also, the platform offers practice tests that will boost your confidence and evaluate how well you are prepared for the test. You should take the Microsoft Azure practice tests after mastering everything you need to know to pass these exams to see how well you perform on each exam in the allotted time.

    • GCP: The platform offers several resources to help you prepare for the data engineering certification exam. You can assess the necessary skills for the exam by checking the exam guide, which includes a comprehensive list of topics that could be part of the exam. Also, you will have access to a dedicated learning path that leads you through a curated selection of on-demand lessons, labs, and skill badges that provide you practical, hands-on exposure to Google Cloud technologies, which are crucial for the Data Engineer profession. Also, you can browse sample questions to get an idea of the type of exam questions and topics that might be covered in the Data Engineer exam. 

Joining the official community is crucial if you plan to take any vendor-specific certification exams for assistance and queries about the exams. You can join various groups on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn with qualified experts and educators to gain useful information and assistance to help you clear your exam.

Textbooks and practical experience are the two things that will help you the most in acquiring the fundamental skills and knowledge required for any certification exam. You can learn the core concepts of data engineering from various informative textbooks available in the market (both online and offline) that will prepare you for each cloud-specific exam. 

Gaining hands-on experience requires you to work on some real-world projects, so here are a few projects that are worth exploring-

1. AWS Projects For Data Engineers

2. Azure Projects For Data Engineers

3. GCP Projects For Data Engineers

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Industry-recognized Data Engineering Certifications

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Industry-recognized data engineer certifications are credentials issued to an individual by a professional organization, such as Cloudera, Databricks, etc., to acknowledge that they have complied with or surpassed a level of standard or to showcase expertise. This section mainly focuses on the three most significant industry-recognized data engineering certifications- Cloudera, Databricks, and Hortonworks.

Cloudera Data Engineering Certification

Cloudera offers the Cloudera Certified Professional Data Engineer Certification, which is one of the most popular and valuable data engineering certifications in the industry.

Cloudera Certified Professional Data Engineer Exam

Cloudera Certified Professional Data Engineer Exam

The Cloudera Certified Professional is the most challenging performance-based certification offered by the organization. The CCP assesses the candidate's technical skill expertise or proficiency. By clearing the CCP Data Engineer exam, a developer can receive the Cloudera Certified Data Engineer certificate, which enables them to acquire the essential skills necessary to ingest, store, process, and analyze data in the Cloudera CDH environment. This exam demonstrates a person's ability to build independent, reliable, scalable data pipelines that provide efficient data sets for various workloads. The registration fee for this exam is USD 400, and the total time limit is 240 minutes. This exam can be taken only in the English language.

Databricks Data Engineering Certification

Databricks offers two highly valuable data engineering certifications- Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate and Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional.

1. Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate

Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate

The Databricks Certified Data Engineer associate exam measures an individual's knowledge of the Databricks Lakehouse platform, its various components, and the real-world use cases you can easily handle using this platform. Passing this certification exam demonstrates the ability to use Databricks and its associated tools to carry out fundamental data engineering activities. Additionally, it evaluates the ability to implement fundamental ETL and data pipelines, Databricks SQL queries, and dashboards in production while retaining entity permissions. 

The exam is 90 minutes long and consists of 45 multiple-choice questions in total. You can retake the associate big data engineer exam as many times as you would like, but each time you do, you must pay the registration price of USD $200. You can register for the certification exam on the official https://www.webassessor.com/databricks platform.

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2. Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional

Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional

The Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional exam demonstrates a candidate's ability to use the Databricks platform to perform advanced data engineering tasks. Passing this exam can strengthen your fundamental knowledge of the Databricks platform and developer tools, including Apache Spark, Delta Lake, and the Databricks CLI and REST API. The ability to model data into data lakes using common data modeling concepts is also evaluated in this exam. The final aspect of this exam will test your understanding of how to ensure data pipelines are reliable, secure, monitored, and tested before deployment.

This advanced-level exam consists of 60 multiple-choice questions and has a 120-minute time limit. Most code examples for this certification test will be written in Python. However, all references to the functionality of Delta Lake will be expressed using SQL. The registration fee and process are identical to the Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate exam.

Hortonworks Data Engineering Certification

The HDP Certified Developer (HDPCD) certification is another popular data engineering certification you can earn to build a successful career in this domain.

HDP Certified Developer (HDPCD) Certification

Instead of having candidates demonstrate their Hadoop expertise by answering multiple-choice questions, Hortonworks has redesigned its certification program to create an industry-recognized certification that requires candidates to complete practical tasks on a Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) cluster. The HDP Certified Developer (HDPCD) certification is the first practical, performance-based exam for Hadoop developers using frameworks like Pig, Hive, Sqoop, and Flume.

Candidates must register on www.examslocal.com. Once you have signed up and logged in, choose "Schedule an Exam" and then type "Hortonworks" into the "Search Here" area to find and select the HDP Certified Developer exam. The examination will cost you approximately $250 USD.

Eligibility Criteria for Industry-Recognised Data Engineering Certifications

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The eligibility criteria for industry-recognized data engineering certifications differ for each certification exam-

The minimum requirements for taking the AWS Big Data Specialty certification exam include-

    • In-depth experience creating data engineering solutions.

    • Proficiency in data ingestion, including the ability to import and export data between your cluster and external relational database management systems and ingest real-time and near-real-time (NRT) streaming data into HDFS.

    • the ability to transform a collection of data values in a specific format stored in HDFS into new data values and write them into HDFS or Hive/HCatalog.

    • Ability to filter, sort, join, aggregate, and/or convert one or more data sets in a certain format stored in HDFS to obtain a specific outcome.

The eligibility criteria for the two Databricks data engineering certifications are below-

  • Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate

    • Understanding of the Databricks Lakehouse Platform and its features, as well as its advantages, including-

      1. Data Lakehouse

      2. Data Science and Engineering workspace

      3. Delta Lake

    • Understanding how to design ETL and data pipelines using Python and Apache Spark SQL.

    • Working knowledge of Databricks SQL queries and dashboards and building data pipelines for data engineering applications.

  • Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional

    • Prior knowledge of leveraging and the advantages of using the Databricks platform and its tools, such as Delta Lake, Databricks CLI, Databricks REST API, Apache Spark (PySpark, DataFrame API), etc.

    • Proven ability to build batch-processed and incremental ETL and data pipelines for data processing using the Spark and Delta Lake APIs.

    • Understanding of setting up notifications, SparkListener, logging metrics, etc., to configure alerting and storage to track and log production jobs.

The minimum requirement for this certification is that the applicant must be able to

- Build Hadoop applications using open-source tools from the Hortonworks Data Platform, such as Pig, Hive, Sqoop, and Flume.

- Perform data ingestion activities, such as importing data from relational database management systems into HDFS or the outputs of a query into HDFS.

- Execute data transformation activities like creating and executing a Pig script, transforming data using Pig into a particular format, transforming data to match a Hive schema, etc.

- Handle data analytics tasks, such as defining a Hive-managed table/ external table/ partitioned table/ bucketed table, creating a new ORCFile table using data in an existing non-ORCFile Hive table, defining the storage type and delimiter of a Hive table, etc.

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Preparation Tips for Industry-recognized Data Engineering Certifications

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Here are a few preparation tips you must follow while pursuing industry-recognized data engineering certifications.

Preparing for any industry-recognized certification exam gets easier if you gain access to all the online learning resources available on the official platforms.

    • Cloudera: You can take a Spark and Hadoop training course the platform provides. This four-day hands-on training course teaches developers the essential concepts and skills to leverage Apache Spark in designing high, parallel applications on the Cloudera Data Platform (CDP). You can practice developing Spark applications that integrate with CDP components like Hive and Kafka through hands-on practice. 

    • Databricks: For the associate-level exam, candidates should take the Databricks Academy courses- the instructor-led course on Data Engineering with Databricks and the self-paced course on Data Engineering with Databricks. Candidates should take the self-paced Databricks Academy courses for the professional-level exam- one on Advanced Data Engineering with Databricks and another on Certification Overview: Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional Exam.

    • Hortonworks: Since Cloudera has merged with the Hortonworks platform, candidates can use the same Cloudera training course to prepare for the Hortonworks certification exam.

Community support is beneficial for any certification exam as it allows you to interact with industry experts and other professionals who have either taken or are planning to take the certification exams. You can clarify any doubts or other queries related to these exams. For example, the Databricks platform offers general community support and an academy learners group specifically meant for exam candidates.

It’s not wise to depend only on official resources while preparing for these certification exams. You must explore a few useful textbooks available in the marketplace that will help you master the fundamental data engineering concepts. You can also check out tutorials related to big data and data engineering that will give you a better grasp of all the subject areas covered in these exams. Apart from these resources, you must also get hands-on practice by working on industry-level big data projects.

Big Data Projects for Data Engineers

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Data Engineering Certification

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Choosing the right data engineering certifications for you can be challenging, especially when several professional certificate options are available. Here are a few factors you must consider while deciding which certification is ideal for you.

The first and foremost point to consider before choosing any data engineering certification is the registration fee for that specific certification. The fees vary for each certification, and you must do some prior research to determine the cost of the certification exam you plan to take. Maximizing your budget as much as possible is advisable since acquiring these certifications will serve as a star on your resume to impress recruiters and land your dream job.

The second most important factor you need to consider while picking out the right data engineer certification for you is the difficulty level of the exam. You must possess some prerequisite knowledge and skills to take any data engineering certification exam. Some focus only on fundamental concepts, while others focus on advanced-level knowledge. Assess your current knowledge and expertise carefully, then decide which certification exam matches your skillset.

Before pursuing any data engineering certification- vendor-specific or industry-recognized, you must remember the main purpose of taking these exams- a successful career in data engineering. This indicates that you must analyze the job prospects for each certification available in the domain, the demand for these certifications among employers, etc. For instance, if you plan to take the GCP certification exam, try to find out how many major organizations mention GCP skills or certification as a mandatory requirement for their employees. Analyze the various platforms, such as LinkedIn, to understand the skills and expertise currently in demand across the big data industry, and then pick out the appropriate certifications for yourself.

Consider the field you want to specialize in and the specific requirements of your employers or organizations when deciding which data engineer certification is ideal for you. For instance, if you want to become an AWS Data Engineer, the AWS Big Data certification is ideal. If you want to become a Databricks Certified data engineer, you must choose either of the Databricks certification exams depending on your prior data engineering experience level. You must also ensure that the certification is issued by a platform or organization that is acknowledged in the industry. Check for testimonials and data regarding the success rate or career trajectories of past applicants.

Elevate Your Data Engineering Game With a Top Data Engineering Certification

One of the best ways of leveraging opportunities within the field of Data engineering is via professional-level certifications. A professional certification can help you gain the necessary skills and knowledge to achieve a rewarding career. Wait, there's more. You must also work on real-world data engineering projects to showcase your expertise in the field. Where to find good industry-level projects? ProjectPro offers over 250 end-to-end solved Big Data and Data Science projects to help you enhance your data engineering skills and make you job-ready in no time!

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FAQs on Data Engineering Certifications

The time to get a data engineer certification depends on the learning approach you choose for the exam- self-paced or instructor-led. The self-paced learning path can take longer since you can take as much time as needed to prepare for the certification exam. The instructor-led training needs to be completed within a specified time.

Here are some qualifications you need to be a data engineer-

  • Bachelor’s (entry-level) or a Master's degree (senior-level) in Computer Science, Information Technology, Statistics, or a similar field.

  • 2-5 years of experience in Software Engineering/Data Management if you seek a senior-level position.

  • Technical skills, including data warehousing and database systems, data analytics, machine learning, programming languages (Python, Java, R, etc.), big data and ETL tools, etc.

  • Non-technical skills such as communication skills, presentation skills, etc.

 

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About the Author

Daivi

Daivi is a highly skilled Technical Content Analyst with over a year of experience at ProjectPro. She is passionate about exploring various technology domains and enjoys staying up-to-date with industry trends and developments. Daivi is known for her excellent research skills and ability to distill

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