Certification Guide
AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate
by Amazon Web Services · Exam code: DEA-C01
The AWS Data Engineer Associate validates your ability to design, build, and manage data pipelines on AWS. It covers data ingestion, transformation, storage, and governance using services like Glue, Redshift, Kinesis, Athena, and Lake Formation.
Cost
$150
Difficulty
Advanced
Prep Time
6-8 weeks
Passing Score
720 / 1000
Valid For
3 years
Salary Impact
+15%
Is it worth it?
Average salary without
$135,000
Average salary with cert
$155,000
Yes. Data engineering is one of the fastest-growing fields in tech, and AWS is the dominant cloud platform. At $150 with a 15% salary boost ($20K+/year), the ROI is excellent. It's also newer than most AWS certs, so fewer people hold it — making it a stronger differentiator.
Study Plan
A week-by-week breakdown to pass on your first attempt.
Data ingestion — Kinesis, MSK, DMS, AppFlow, Transfer Family, S3 transfer patterns
Data transformation — Glue ETL, Glue Studio, EMR, Step Functions, Lambda for data processing
Data stores — Redshift, RDS, DynamoDB, Athena, Lake Formation, data modeling patterns
Security, governance, operations — IAM, KMS, CloudWatch, data quality, practice exams
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Careers this cert unlocks
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Data engineering is one of the fastest-growing fields in tech, and AWS is the dominant cloud platform. At $150 with a 15% salary boost ($20K+/year), the ROI is excellent. It's also newer than most AWS certs, so fewer people hold it — making it a stronger differentiator. Certified professionals earn $155,000 on average compared to $135,000 without the certification — a +15% salary boost.
The AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate exam costs $150. Factor in preparation materials and study time of approximately 6-8 weeks. The certification is valid for 3 years. Given the +15% salary boost, most professionals recover the investment within the first few months.
AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate is rated Advanced difficulty (3/5). The exam format is 65 questions, 130 minutes, multiple choice & multiple response with a passing score of 720 / 1000. Most candidates need about 6-8 weeks of dedicated study time to pass.
2-3 years of experience in data engineering. Strong SQL skills and familiarity with AWS data services (Glue, Redshift, S3, Kinesis, EMR).
AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate is particularly valuable for Data Engineer, Data Scientist, Cloud Architect roles. Data engineers building on AWS, analytics engineers, and ETL developers. Also valuable for data scientists who want to strengthen their data engineering foundations on the AWS platform.
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