Exam Details
AWS · DEA-C01
Design and manage scalable data pipelines and analytics solutions on AWS.
Practice with ExamOS for AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate. Learn daily with scenario-based questions, timed quizzes, detailed explanations, and exam-style difficulty.
Who is this for?
Level: Intermediate. This exam focuses entirely on the architecture and management of data engineering workloads on AWS. Although there are no formal prerequisites, AWS officially recommends one to two years of hands-on experience building and managing data pipelines. You should be highly familiar with data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration using services like AWS Glue, Redshift, Kinesis, and S3. Prior experience with SQL and a scripting language like Python is highly recommended.
Are you ready?
You are fully prepared if you can confidently design scalable ETL workflows, optimize data storage for performance and cost, and choose the right tools for complex data workloads. Test your pipeline skills today!
Overview
The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) certification is designed for professionals who build and manage data pipelines on AWS. It focuses on data ingestion, transformation, storage, and analytics. The exam covers services such as AWS Glue, Redshift, and Kinesis. Candidates are expected to understand how to design efficient and scalable data workflows. A key aspect of this certification is handling real-world data scenarios. You will encounter situations involving data processing, performance tuning, and cost optimization. This certification is particularly relevant for data engineers and professionals working with large-scale data systems. As organizations rely heavily on data for decision-making, the ability to build reliable data pipelines becomes increasingly important, making this certification highly relevant.
FAQ
The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam consists of 65 questions that must be completed within 130 minutes. The questions are delivered in two formats:
The exam is scored on a scale of 100 to 1,000, with a minimum passing score of 720. Your performance is evaluated based on a scaled scoring model, meaning the difficulty of specific questions is taken into account. ExamOS offers scenario-based practice quizzes that build real exam confidence by helping you gauge your performance against these standards before the actual test.
The exam content is divided into four specific domains, each representing a percentage of the final score:
Successful candidates typically use a mix of theoretical study and practical application. Recommended resources include:
The registration fee for the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam is $150 USD. This price is standard for all Associate-level certifications from AWS. If you have passed a previous AWS certification, you may have a 50% discount voucher available in your AWS Certification account to apply toward this cost.
If you are unsuccessful in passing the exam, you must wait 14 calendar days before you are eligible to retake it. There is no limit on the number of attempts you can make, but you must pay the full registration fee for every attempt. You cannot retake an exam that you have already passed unless the certification has expired.
The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate certification is valid for three years from the date of passing. To maintain your certified status, you must go through the recertification process, which typically involves:
There are no mandatory prerequisites for taking the DEA-C01, though it is designed for individuals with 2–3 years of experience in data engineering. The target audience includes:
Earning this certification significantly improves your marketability for roles such as Data Engineer, Analytics Engineer, and Business Intelligence Engineer. Organizations are aggressively migrating to cloud-native data architectures, and they require certified professionals who can:
Once you have mastered the Data Engineer – Associate level, you can further specialize your skills or broaden your architectural knowledge. Logical next steps include: