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
Best Prep Resources
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