Certification guide
The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) is Amazon Web Services’ associate-level credential purpose-built for data engineers. It validates that you can build data ingestion and transformation pipelines, choose and manage the right data stores, operationalize and troubleshoot pipelines, and apply appropriate security and governance across the AWS data services stack: Amazon S3, AWS Glue, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Redshift, Amazon EMR, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lake Formation, AWS Lambda, Amazon Athena, and the ecosystem around them.
The exam targets working data engineers with roughly two to three years of data engineering experience and one to two years of hands-on AWS. That profile is a recommendation rather than an enforced prerequisite. There is no required certification and no experience check at registration. The questions are scenario-based and test judgment, picking the best of several plausible AWS approaches, not memorizing service feature lists. Roughly 60 percent of items place you in a business situation and ask which service or architectural approach is most appropriate.
Exam code · DEA-C01 Level · Associate Questions · 65 Duration · 130 min Pass · 720 / 1000 Cost · $150 USDData Ingestion and Transformation
Domain 1 · 34%The heaviest domain by far. Ingest streaming and batch data using Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, Amazon Data Firehose, AWS DMS, Amazon MSK, Amazon AppFlow, AWS Transfer Family, and AWS DataSync. Transform and orchestrate with AWS Glue Spark, AWS Glue DataBrew, Amazon EMR, AWS Lambda, AWS Step Functions, and Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow. Expect deep coverage of batch vs streaming trade-offs, file formats (Parquet, Avro, ORC), compression choices, partitioning, and the small-files problem.
Data Store Management
Domain 2 · 26%Choose the right store for the workload: Amazon S3 as the data lake foundation, Amazon Redshift for analytics, Amazon DynamoDB for OLTP key-value access, Amazon Aurora and RDS for relational, and Amazon OpenSearch for search. Design data models, catalog schemas with the AWS Glue Data Catalog and crawlers, and manage lifecycles with S3 storage classes, lifecycle rules, and open table formats (Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, Apache Hudi) for upserts, time travel, and schema evolution on the lake.
Data Operations and Support
Domain 3 · 22%Operationalize pipelines: Amazon CloudWatch metrics, logs, and dashboards; alerting via Amazon SNS; AWS Glue Data Quality (DQDL) for row counts, freshness, and completeness rules; error handling and retries in Step Functions; Spark tuning (broadcast joins, shuffle, spill diagnosis) on Amazon EMR and Glue; and Redshift query monitoring. This domain also covers reprocessing patterns, idempotency, and the difference between silent job success and real data-quality success.
Data Security and Governance
Domain 4 · 18%Authentication and authorization through AWS IAM roles and IAM Identity Center; fine-grained access with AWS Lake Formation (row, column, and cell-level filters); encryption with AWS KMS customer-managed keys; data classification and PII discovery with Amazon Macie; audit with AWS CloudTrail and Redshift audit logging; and network isolation via VPC endpoints, security groups, and private subnets. Retention and tamper-evidence use S3 Object Lock and lifecycle policies.
This practice exam mirrors the real AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam in shape and scenario style: 65 items per set, 130 minutes of working time, and a 72% (720/1000 scaled) pass mark. The pass mark on Certifym is set to the honest raw-score equivalent of the AWS scale, the scoring math varies by form on the real exam, but if you can hit 72% consistently across the sets here, you are prepared for the item mix on test day, not just the easy ones and not luck in the heavy ones.
AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate - Practice Exam
AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) practice bank on Certifym. 65 scenario-based questions aligned to the current AWS exam blueprint across all four content domains:…
Subscribe to startFrequently asked questions about DEA-C01
What is the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) exam?
DEA-C01 is Amazon Web Services’ associate-level credential purpose-built for data engineers. It validates that you can build data ingestion and transformation pipelines, choose and manage the right data stores, operationalize and troubleshoot pipelines, and apply appropriate security and governance across the AWS data services stack: Amazon S3, AWS Glue, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Redshift, Amazon EMR, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lake Formation, AWS Lambda, and Amazon Athena.
How many questions are on the DEA-C01 exam and how long is it?
The exam contains 65 questions and gives you 130 minutes of working time. Questions are scenario-based rather than recall-based: roughly 60 percent of items place you in a business situation and ask which service or architectural approach is most appropriate.
What is the passing score for DEA-C01?
720 out of 1000 on the AWS scaled scoring system, which works out to about 72%. The scaled score is not a raw percentage, the scoring math varies by exam form, but 72% is the honest raw-score equivalent, and it is the pass mark Certifym uses on every practice set for this exam.
How much does the DEA-C01 exam cost?
$150 USD, the standard AWS associate-tier registration fee.
What experience do I need before taking DEA-C01?
The exam targets working data engineers with roughly two to three years of data engineering experience and one to two years of hands-on AWS. That is a recommended profile, not an enforced one. There is no formal prerequisite certification and no experience check at registration.
How hard is the DEA-C01 exam?
It is an associate-level exam that tests judgment rather than memorization. The questions are scenario-based and ask you to pick the best of several plausible AWS approaches, not to recall service feature lists, so the difficulty comes from telling near-equivalent architectures apart under a stated constraint. Candidates who have actually built and operated pipelines on AWS find it far more tractable than candidates studying service documentation alone.
What domains does DEA-C01 cover and how are they weighted?
Four domains: Data Ingestion and Transformation (34%), Data Store Management (26%), Data Operations and Support (22%), and Data Security and Governance (18%). Data Ingestion and Transformation is the heaviest domain by far and should absorb the most study time.
How do I prepare for the DEA-C01 exam?
Build and break real pipelines first (batch and streaming ingestion, Glue and EMR transformation, a cataloged S3 lake, Lake Formation permissions) then drill scenarios. Certifym’s practice sets mirror the real exam in shape and scenario style at 65 items per set, 130 minutes, and the same 72% pass mark, so a consistent 72% across the sets means you are prepared for the real item mix rather than just the easy questions.
How does DEA-C01 compare with AWS Solutions Architect – Associate?
DEA-C01 is narrow and deep on the data stack: ingestion and transformation pipelines, data store selection and modeling, pipeline operations, and data governance. Solutions Architect – Associate is broader and covers general AWS architecture across compute, networking, storage, and cost. They sit at the same associate tier, and many data engineers hold both, but neither is a prerequisite for the other.
Trademark notice & independence. Certifym.net is operated by Certifym Exam Services, LLC and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon Web Services, Inc. AWS, Amazon Web Services, and the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate credential are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All references to the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) exam are for identification only.
All practice questions on Certifym are original content authored specifically for this platform. They are not drawn from any official AWS exam, and no attempt has been made to reproduce actual exam items. Passing this practice exam does not guarantee passing the official AWS certification exam.