You can read about all the new role based qualifications from Microsoft here – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-overview.aspx

Today I want to talk about the Azure Data Engineer one from my experience without violating NDAs etc. So why did I want to do this one? Well I thought that it would complement my current skill set and I wanted something to “go for” during my lockdown  and as you will see I had unfinished business when I did the *cough* *cough* Professional Program in Big Data. Let me use my experience to help those that want to pass the 2 exams to get the associate qualification.

Tip 1 . This applied to me, if you spent many weeks, even months in my case going through all the modules from the old Big Data program you are not far off from the current syllabus  so if you did then  (as I have)  just put  in another 100 + hours on Azure Databricks, HDInsight and  Azure streaming analytics etc.

Tip 2. You really need an Azure account with funds available to build end to end solutions so you understand the little things, like secrets, scopes Azure Key Vaults etc. Point here? Get practical! Reading is not enough.

Tip 3. Talking about reading, please read the module/syllabus list. For example I tried to go in cold in some areas thinking I would float past the questions (even in my strong areas). It wont work, there is something you will miss.

Tip 4. If you have PluralSight use it. I used it to get a base to work from. Most videos there are a very good starting point. Pluralsight sent me some stats, apparently over the 2 months I have watched 778 video clips! Well that’s across everything I am interested in, not just Data but also Architecture and Azure AI. AI just fascinates me.

FINAL TIP – ENJOY IT. I found out how great databricks was and spent many hot days in my garage on my laptop getting practical and reading / watching material from databricks themselves. This really helped and will help you too.