Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark 3.0

I passed the Databricks Certified Associate Developer exam for Apache Spark 3.0 (python). Here is my certificate!

I registered for the exam when joining the Spark Summit this June, hoping to set a goal to push myself to dive deeper into spark architecture and performance tuning.

[Experience sharing] On top of coding with pyspark at work (which helps me with most of the syntax questions in the exam), my exam preparation mainly involves reading the two books, Spark: The Definitive Guide and Learning Spark 2.0.

It was my very first time taking an online proctored exam at home, and there were two things I wish I could have known before the exam:

1. The spark documentation (PDF file) provided by Sentinel (i.e., the exam software) is not searchable. One has to scroll through the page to find what s/he needs.
2. The proctor would check your workspace configuration during the exam (i.e., not at the beginning). The exam would pause during the check, so you don’t have to worry about losing time.

I believe there will be more tests conducted with an online proctor given the evolution of the pandemic. Perhaps we will get used to the online test workspace setup at home very soon.