Data foundations
- Right tool for the size
- Bad data policy
- Grain, joins, star schema and medallion layers
DataKern Certification
DataKern Certified Data Engineer
Azure, Databricks, Spark and the data foundations underneath them: what to use where, and why.
Launch offerFree to try out. Practice and the exam cost nothing while we launch. Register, try a case, and see what you can decide.
Associate level
DataKern Certified Data Engineer (Associate)
- 45 questions
- 9 cases
- 90 minutes
- Open-book
Open to any registered student. Every case asks five questions, one for each of the five moves.
What is tested
Azure
- Which Azure storage for which job
- Ingestion and orchestration
- Security basics
Spark and Databricks
- Why a Spark job is slow
- Delta Lake on the medallion layers
- Databricks platform choices
Professional level
DataKern Certified Data Engineer (Professional)
- 30 questions
- 6 cases
- 90 minutes
- Open-book
Opens after you pass Associate in the same track. Every case asks five questions, one for each of the five moves.
What is tested
Design
- Lakehouse design for a regulated company
- Platform choice and build versus buy
Operate
- Cost and scaling incident
- Streaming versus batch and reliability
Govern and change
- Governance and personal data at scale
- Migration from an on-premises warehouse
What every case looks like
Each case is a short story: an email, sometimes chats, logs or tables, with real limits like team size, budget, deadline and data rules. After it come five questions, always in this order:
- Spot the problem. Read a real situation and find what actually matters, using the numbers in front of you.
- Pick the solution. Pick the best option, and say why. The best choice depends on the numbers.
- Ask the AI. Write a request that an AI assistant can really use: the facts, the limits and the rules.
- Check the plan. An AI assistant suggests a plan. Keep the good parts, fix the weak ones, and reject the risky ones.
- Handle the change. Something changes in the middle of the work. Decide what the plan now needs.
The exam is for you. It is open-book and unproctored, so you can check your notes and the documentation. Please do not ask an AI to answer the questions: the result only helps you if the answers are yours. This is DataKern's own credential, and the badge states the conditions: open-book, unproctored, 90 minutes. Read the rules.