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Ace Skills Consulting
Databricks logoIntermediate

Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate

Build reliable lakehouse pipelines on Databricks with Spark, Delta Lake and Unity Catalog.

  • 16 hours of live, trainer-led sessions
  • Hands-on Databricks workspace for every lab
  • Medallion architecture with Delta Lake
  • Incremental ingestion, declarative pipelines and jobs
  • Practice questions with review
Duration
2 Days | 16 Hrs
Next batch
Batches on request
Delivery
Live Online · Onsite · Corporate
Level
Intermediate
Exam
Data Engineer Associate
Language
English

Why learn this course with Ace Skills

  • Lakehouse in practice

    Build bronze, silver and gold layers with Delta Lake end to end.

  • Production pipelines

    Move from notebooks to scheduled, monitored pipelines and jobs.

  • Governed by design

    Apply Unity Catalog permissions and lineage from the start.

  • Exam-aligned

    Cover the Data Engineer Associate exam areas with practice questions.

Course overview

The lakehouse approach combines the flexibility of a data lake with the reliability of a warehouse, and Databricks is one of the most widely adopted platforms for it. This two-day course teaches the core data engineering skills you need to build and run pipelines there.

Day one introduces the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform — workspaces, compute, notebooks and Git folders — and moves straight into transforming data with Spark SQL and PySpark. You will work with Delta Lake tables, understand transactions, time travel, schema enforcement and optimisation, and ingest data incrementally with Auto Loader and COPY INTO.

Day two focuses on production pipelines and governance. You will build a medallion (bronze, silver, gold) pipeline using declarative pipelines with data quality expectations, orchestrate tasks with jobs, and handle change data capture. You will then manage access and lineage with Unity Catalog, share data securely, and finish with an exam readiness session.

Labs run in a live Databricks workspace using realistic datasets, so you finish with working notebooks and pipelines you can adapt.

This course is aligned to the Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate exam. Databricks updates its exam guide periodically; please check the current version on the Databricks certification site before booking.

Key features

  • Live Databricks workspace labs
  • Spark SQL and PySpark transformations
  • Delta Lake operations and optimisation
  • Auto Loader incremental ingestion
  • Declarative pipelines with quality expectations
  • Unity Catalog governance
  • Course completion certificate from Ace Skills Consulting

Who should attend

  • Data engineers new to Databricks
  • ETL and data warehouse developers
  • Data analysts moving into engineering
  • Cloud engineers supporting data platforms

Prerequisites

  • Working knowledge of SQL
  • Basic Python is helpful
  • Familiarity with data warehousing concepts

Curriculum

2 Days · 16 Hours · 8 Modules · 5 Labs

  1. Databricks platform

    • Lakehouse architecture
    • Workspaces and compute
    • Notebooks and Git folders
    • Serverless and SQL warehouses

    Transforming data

    • Spark SQL
    • PySpark DataFrames
    • Complex types and higher-order functions
    • User-defined functions
    • Lab: Clean and transform raw JSON with Spark SQL and PySpark · 50 min

    Delta Lake

    • ACID transactions
    • Time travel
    • Schema enforcement and evolution
    • MERGE, OPTIMIZE and liquid clustering
    • Lab: Upsert and time travel on Delta tables · 45 min

    Incremental ingestion

    • Auto Loader
    • COPY INTO
    • Structured Streaming basics
    • Lab: Ingest files incrementally with Auto Loader · 35 min

  2. Declarative pipelines

    • Medallion architecture
    • Streaming tables and materialised views
    • Data quality expectations
    • Change data capture
    • Lab: Build a bronze-silver-gold pipeline with expectations · 60 min

    Orchestration

    • Jobs and tasks
    • Dependencies and parameters
    • Scheduling and alerts
    • Repair and rerun

    Governance

    • Unity Catalog object model
    • Permissions and grants
    • Lineage
    • Delta Sharing overview
    • Lab: Secure tables with Unity Catalog · 35 min

    Exam readiness

    • Exam guide review
    • Question styles
    • Practice questions with review
Download full syllabus (PDF)

Skills you will gain

  • Databricks
  • Lakehouse architecture
  • Spark SQL
  • PySpark
  • Delta Lake
  • Auto Loader
  • Declarative pipelines
  • Medallion architecture
  • Databricks Jobs
  • Unity Catalog
  • Data quality

Tools & technologies

  • Databricks
  • Apache Spark
  • Delta Lake
  • Unity Catalog
  • Databricks SQL
  • Git

Certification exam

Exam details
Exam nameDatabricks Certified Data Engineer Associate
Exam codeData Engineer Associate
Number of questions45
Duration90 minutes
Exam feeUS$200 (set by the vendor; may vary by country)
Voucher includedNo — book directly with the vendor
Question formatMultiple choice
DeliveryOnline proctored
Validity & renewal2 years

Skill areas measured

  1. Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
  2. Development and ingestion
  3. Data processing and transformations
  4. Productionising data pipelines
  5. Data governance and quality

Exam details are pending verification. Vendors change exams; confirm on the official vendor page before booking. Official exam page (opens in a new tab)

Schedule & Pricing

Live Online

Individual

Price on request

  • 16 hours of live, trainer-led sessions
  • 5 hands-on labs
  • Ace Skills course completion certificate

Onsite

At your office or our centre

Pricing depends on location, group size and dates.

  • Delivered at your premises or an Ace centre
  • Same curriculum and labs as live online
  • Dates planned around your team

Corporate / Team

Private batch for your organisation

A private batch with content adapted to your environment and goals.

  • Customised curriculum
  • Private batch, online or onsite
  • Progress and assessment reports
  • GST invoice and PO-based billing

No public batches scheduled — Talk to an Advisor for a private batch.

Projects & labs you will build

  • Day 1 · 45 min

    Upsert and time travel on Delta tables

  • Day 2 · 60 min

    Build a bronze-silver-gold pipeline with expectations

Your certificate

Certificate of Completion — Ace Skills Consulting

Awarded on completing the course. It records the course title and training hours, and you can share it on your LinkedIn profile.

The Databricks certification itself is awarded by Databricks when you pass exam Data Engineer Associate.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a Databricks account?

No. We provide workspace access for all labs.

Is Python required?

SQL is the main language; basic Python helps for the PySpark sections and is taught as needed.

How current is the course?

We update content when Databricks revises the exam guide. Please confirm the current guide before booking.

Which cloud does Databricks run on in the labs?

Databricks behaves the same on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud; differences are noted where relevant.

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