AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01)
Amazon Web Services
Complete guide to passing the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) exam on your first attempt.
$150
Not published
3 years
Global
Amazon Web Services
$104k-$141k (BLS 2024 medians)
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Complete Overview
The AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate exam, code DEA-C01, costs $150 USD and validates a candidate's ability to implement data pipelines and to monitor, troubleshoot, and optimise cost and performance issues on AWS. AWS describes the target candidate as someone with the equivalent of 2 to 3 years of experience in data engineering and at least 1 to 2 years of hands-on experience with AWS services. The exam runs 130 minutes and contains 65 questions, of which 50 affect your score and 15 are unscored trial items that AWS uses to evaluate future questions. Results are reported on a scaled score of 100 to 1,000 and the minimum passing score is 720. AWS uses a compensatory scoring model, meaning you do not need to pass each section individually, only the exam as a whole. Two question types appear. Multiple choice items have one correct response and three distractors. Multiple response items have two or more correct responses out of five or more options. Unanswered questions score as incorrect and there is no penalty for guessing. The scored content is split across four domains with published weights that sum to 100 percent: Data Ingestion and Transformation at 34 percent, Data Store Management at 26 percent, Data Operations and Support at 22 percent, and Data Security and Governance at 18 percent. The current exam guide is version 1.1, published on 12 December 2025, which consolidated the separate knowledge and skills lists from version 1.0 into a single skills list per task and added items covering Apache Iceberg, Amazon S3 Tables, vector index types such as HNSW and IVF, large language model integration for data processing, and Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio. The exam is offered in English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese, and is delivered at Pearson VUE test centres or as an online proctored exam. The certification is valid for three years. AWS does not display pass or fail on screen for most certification exams. Detailed results appear in your AWS Certification Account under Exam History within five business days, and a Credly digital badge email may arrive before that. If you fail, you must wait 14 calendar days before retaking. There is no limit on the number of attempts, but the full registration fee applies to every one. Once you pass, you cannot retake the same exam for two years unless AWS republishes it under a new exam guide and series code. AWS does not publish pass rates for any of its certification exams. DEA-C01 sits alongside Solutions Architect - Associate, Developer - Associate, SysOps Administrator - Associate, and Machine Learning Engineer - Associate in the associate tier, and it is the only one of the five built around data pipelines and data stores rather than application or infrastructure work.
Why Get AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) Certified?
Four published domain weights totalling 100 percent tell you exactly where the 50 scored questions sit, unlike exams that publish no weighting at all.
$150 USD is the standard AWS associate-tier price, half the $300 charged for AWS professional-level exams.
The certification is valid for three years, and passing it puts a 50 percent discount voucher in your AWS Certification Account for a future exam.
130 minutes for 65 questions gives exactly 2 minutes per item, which is generous compared with fundamentals-tier exams that allow around one minute.
AWS names the in-scope services explicitly, listing more than 70 of them across 14 categories, so the study surface is bounded rather than open-ended.
Exam guide version 1.1 of 12 December 2025 pulled in Apache Iceberg, S3 Tables, and vector indexing, which are the same topics appearing in current data platform job descriptions.
The compensatory scoring model means one weak domain does not fail you outright, so an 18 percent security domain gap can be offset by strength in the 34 percent ingestion domain.
Exam Format & Structure
Duration
130 minutes
Questions
65 questions, of which 50 are scored and 15 are unscored
Passing Score
720 on a scaled score of 100 to 1,000
Question Types
- Multiple choice, with one correct response and three distractors
- Multiple response, with two or more correct responses out of five or more options
Delivery Method
Pearson VUE test centre or online proctored exam
- The 15 unscored questions are not identified on the exam and are indistinguishable from scored ones, so answer every item.
- Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect and AWS applies no penalty for guessing, so never leave a question blank.
- AWS uses a compensatory scoring model. Section-level classifications may appear on your score report, but you only need to pass the overall exam.
- Non-native English speakers taking the exam in English can request the ESL +30 MINUTES accommodation, which adds 30 minutes and only needs to be requested once for all future registrations.
- AWS states that exam guide revisions are published at least one month before the changes appear on the live exam.
How scoring works
Score scale
100 to 1,000
Score needed to pass
720
Roughly what that means raw
Not published. AWS does not state how many of the 50 scored questions correspond to 720, and the number varies by form because scaled scoring equates forms of different difficulty.
When results arrive
Within five business days, in your AWS Certification Account under Exam History
How the scale is built
Fifty of the 65 questions are scored. AWS converts your raw performance on those items into a scaled score so that results are comparable across exam forms that differ slightly in difficulty. The model is compensatory, so strength in one domain offsets weakness in another and no per-domain threshold applies. Unanswered questions count as incorrect and no points are deducted for a wrong answer.
- Most AWS certification exams do not display a pass or fail result on screen when you finish.
- The score report may include a table of classifications of performance at each section level, which AWS says highlights strengths and weaknesses in general terms only.
- Because sections carry different numbers of questions, section-level feedback cannot be converted into a count of correct answers.
- A Credly digital badge notification may reach you before results post to your AWS Certification Account.
- Beta exam results follow the same five-business-day window.
Pacing and time budget
65 questions in 130 minutes gives you 2 minutes exactly per question.
| At this point | You should have answered |
|---|---|
| 30 min | 15 |
| 60 min | 30 |
| 90 min | 45 |
| 120 min | 60 |
- Multiple response questions with five or more options take longer than multiple choice with four, so bank time on the short ones.
- Long scenario stems describing a pipeline usually reduce to one constraint in the final sentence. Read that sentence first to decide what the question actually asks.
- Fifteen of the 65 questions are unscored, so a question that resists you for three minutes may carry no marks at all. Flag it and move.
- Aim to reach question 65 by minute 120, leaving 10 minutes to revisit flagged items and clear any blanks.
- There is no scheduled break in the 130 minutes. Test centre rules on leaving the room mid-exam vary, so confirm with the centre rather than assuming.
Where the marks are
| Topic | Weight | Why it scores |
|---|---|---|
| Data ingestion from streaming and batch sources | Part of the 34% Data Ingestion and Transformation domain | Task 1.1 alone carries twelve named skills, more than any other task in the guide, and it names Kinesis, Amazon MSK, DynamoDB Streams, DMS, Glue, Redshift, S3, EMR, Lambda, and AppFlow. The largest domain opens with the largest task. |
| Transformation service selection on cost and performance | Part of the 34% Data Ingestion and Transformation domain | Task 1.2 asks you to implement transformation services based on requirements across EMR, Glue, Lambda, and Redshift while optimising cost. Almost every scenario question in this domain reduces to picking between those four. |
| Data store selection across Redshift, DynamoDB, RDS, and Aurora | Part of the 26% Data Store Management domain | Task 2.1 is the first task of the second largest domain and its first two skills are both about matching a store to stated cost, performance, and access pattern requirements. Getting the store wrong invalidates every downstream option. |
| Cataloguing with Glue Data Catalog and crawlers | Part of the 26% Data Store Management domain | Task 2.2 covers six skills including crawler-driven schema discovery, partition synchronisation, and connections. The Glue Data Catalog is also the metadata layer Athena, EMR, and Redshift Spectrum all read from, so the knowledge is reused in domain 3. |
| Pipeline monitoring and troubleshooting | Part of the 22% Data Operations and Support domain | Task 3.3 has eight skills, all of them about extracting logs, deploying monitoring, sending alerts, and diagnosing performance. Questions here give you a symptom and ask for the next diagnostic step, which is hard to guess without hands-on practice. |
| Lake Formation permissions and least-privilege IAM policies | Part of the 18% Data Security and Governance domain | Tasks 4.1 and 4.2 together carry thirteen skills, and Lake Formation is named as the permission layer across Redshift, EMR, Athena, and S3. Candidates who know only plain IAM lose these marks consistently. |
| Encryption with KMS, including cross-account and in transit | Part of the 18% Data Security and Governance domain | Task 4.3 has four skills covering masking, KMS encryption and decryption, encryption across account boundaries, and encryption in transit. Cross-account key policies are the part most candidates have never configured. |
The numbers
$150 USD
Exam fee
Source: AWS, Certified Data Engineer - Associate certification page
130 minutes, 65 questions, of which 50 are scored and 15 are unscored
Duration and question count
Source: AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) exam guide
720 on a scaled score of 100 to 1,000
Passing score
Source: AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) exam guide, Exam results section
34% ingestion and transformation, 26% data store management, 22% operations and support, 18% security and governance
Domain weights
Source: AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) exam guide, Content outline
14 calendar days between attempts, no limit on attempts, full fee each time
Retake wait and attempt limit
Source: AWS Certification FAQs
Not published
Pass rate
Source: AWS publishes no pass-rate figures in its exam guides, FAQs, or certification policies
If you fail
Wait before retaking
14 calendar days from the failed attempt
Attempt limit
No limit on the number of attempts
Retake fee
Full $150 USD registration fee for every attempt
Once you pass, you cannot retake the same exam for two years, unless AWS updates it with a new exam guide and exam series code, in which case you are eligible for the new version. A missed appointment forfeits the fee and blocks re-registration for 24 hours but does not record a fail. Beta exams may be taken only once during the beta period; if you fail a beta, you retake once the standard version is generally available.
Exam Domains & Topics
The largest domain, covering four tasks: performing data ingestion, transforming and processing data, orchestrating data pipelines, and applying programming concepts. AWS lists both streaming and batch sources by name and expects you to configure schedulers, event triggers, throttling, and fan-in and fan-out patterns for streaming distribution.
Key Topics to Master:
- Streaming sources: Kinesis, Amazon MSK, DynamoDB Streams, AWS DMS, AWS Glue, Redshift
- Batch sources: Amazon S3, AWS Glue, Amazon EMR, AWS DMS, Redshift, Lambda, Amazon AppFlow
- Schedulers with EventBridge, Apache Airflow, and time-based triggers for jobs and crawlers
- Throttling and rate limits on DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, and Kinesis
- Format conversion, for example CSV to Apache Parquet
- Orchestration with Lambda, EventBridge, Amazon MWAA, Step Functions, and Glue workflows
- Lambda concurrency configuration and code optimisation for runtime
- Infrastructure as code with CloudFormation, AWS CDK, and AWS SAM
- Integrating large language models for data processing
- Replayability of ingestion pipelines and stateful against stateless transactions
Four tasks: choosing a data store, understanding data cataloguing systems, managing the lifecycle of data, and designing data models and schema evolution. Version 1.1 of the exam guide added open table formats and vector index types here, so Apache Iceberg and HNSW against IVF now appear in the scored content.
Key Topics to Master:
- Choosing between Redshift, EMR, Lake Formation, RDS, DynamoDB, Kinesis Data Streams, and Amazon MSK on cost and performance
- Open table formats, specifically Apache Iceberg
- Vector index types including HNSW and IVF, and HNSW with Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL
- AWS Glue Data Catalog, Apache Hive metastore, Glue crawlers, and partition synchronisation
- Amazon SageMaker Catalog for business data catalogues
- S3 Lifecycle policies for tier changes and expiry, S3 versioning, and DynamoDB TTL
- Redshift federated queries, materialised views, and Redshift Spectrum
- Schema design for Redshift, DynamoDB, and Lake Formation
- Schema conversion with AWS SCT and AWS DMS Schema Conversion
- Indexing, partitioning, and compression optimisation techniques
Four tasks: automating data processing with AWS services, analysing data, maintaining and monitoring pipelines, and ensuring data quality. Half of this domain is troubleshooting rather than building, so expect questions that hand you a symptom, such as a failing Glue job or a slow query, and ask for the diagnostic step.
Key Topics to Master:
- Orchestration with Amazon MWAA and Step Functions, and troubleshooting managed workflows
- Querying with Amazon Athena and Athena notebooks running Apache Spark
- Data preparation with AWS Glue DataBrew and Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio
- Visualisation with DataBrew and Amazon QuickSight
- SQL in Amazon Redshift and Athena for queries and views
- Log analysis with Athena, EMR, OpenSearch Service, and CloudWatch Logs Insights
- Data quality rules and consistency checks in DataBrew
- Data sampling techniques and data skew mechanisms
- Trade-offs between provisioned and serverless services
- Aggregation, rolling averages, grouping, and pivoting
The smallest domain and the one with the most tasks, five in total: authentication, authorisation, encryption and masking, preparing logs for audit, and data privacy and governance. Lake Formation permissions and least-privilege IAM policy construction are the two recurring themes across the task statements.
Key Topics to Master:
- IAM groups, roles, endpoints, and policies, including S3 Access Points and AWS PrivateLink
- Credential rotation with AWS Secrets Manager and Systems Manager Parameter Store
- Lake Formation permissions across Redshift, EMR, Athena, and S3
- Role-based, tag-based, and attribute-based authorisation methods
- Custom policies meeting the principle of least privilege
- Encryption with AWS KMS, including across account boundaries, and encryption in transit
- Data masking and anonymisation for compliance
- CloudTrail API tracking, CloudTrail Lake, and CloudWatch Logs
- PII identification with Amazon Macie and Lake Formation
- Data sovereignty, Region restrictions on backups and replication, and AWS Config change tracking
Recommended Study Plan
- 1Read the DEA-C01 exam guide end to end and note the 34, 26, 22, and 18 percent weights
- 2Read the Revisions page and mark every skill added in version 1.1 of 12 December 2025
- 3Copy the in-scope services list into a spreadsheet and rate your confidence on each from 1 to 5
- 4Read the out-of-scope list so you stop studying ML training and inference
- 5Set up an AWS account with a billing alarm before you start deploying anything
- 1Send records into a Kinesis Data Stream and read them with a Lambda consumer
- 2Set up an Amazon MSK cluster or read the MSK documentation on partition and consumer group behaviour
- 3Enable DynamoDB Streams and wire the stream to a Lambda function
- 4Compare Kinesis Data Streams against Kinesis Data Firehose on delivery guarantees and buffering
- 5Write notes on fan-in and fan-out for streaming distribution and on replayability
- 1Run an AWS Glue job that reads from S3 and writes Parquet back to S3
- 2Create a Glue crawler and inspect the table it registers in the Glue Data Catalog
- 3Build a Step Functions state machine that chains two Glue jobs with error handling
- 4Schedule a job with EventBridge and separately with an S3 Event Notification trigger
- 5Compare Amazon MWAA against Step Functions on cost, cold start, and operational overhead
- 1Run the same transformation on Glue, EMR, and Lambda and record cost and runtime for each
- 2Convert a CSV dataset to Apache Parquet and measure the query time difference in Athena
- 3Configure Lambda reserved and provisioned concurrency and observe throttling behaviour
- 4Deploy a small pipeline with AWS SAM and again with AWS CDK
- 5Read the version 1.1 skill on integrating large language models for data processing
- 1Build a decision table for Redshift, DynamoDB, RDS, Aurora, MemoryDB, DocumentDB, Neptune, and Keyspaces
- 2Create an Apache Iceberg table and perform a schema evolution on it
- 3Read the Amazon S3 Tables documentation, which is new to the in-scope list
- 4Compare HNSW and IVF vector index types and note where each is preferred
- 5Run a Redshift Spectrum query against S3 data and compare with a federated query
- 1Write an S3 Lifecycle policy that transitions to Glacier and expires objects at a fixed age
- 2Enable S3 versioning and DynamoDB TTL and confirm the deletion behaviour of each
- 3Design a Redshift schema with an appropriate distribution style and sort key
- 4Design a DynamoDB table with a partition key that avoids a hot partition
- 5Run AWS DMS Schema Conversion against a source database schema
- 1Break a Glue job deliberately and diagnose it from CloudWatch Logs alone
- 2Query CloudTrail events in Athena to trace who changed a resource
- 3Set a CloudWatch alarm that publishes to an SNS topic on pipeline failure
- 4Run CloudWatch Logs Insights queries against application logs
- 5Practise reading an Athena query plan to find the slow stage
- 1Define data quality rules in AWS Glue DataBrew and run them against a dirty dataset
- 2Investigate data consistency in DataBrew and record what the profile output shows
- 3Write SQL in Athena for aggregation, rolling averages, grouping, and pivoting
- 4Identify data skew in a Spark job and apply a mitigation
- 5Build a QuickSight dashboard on top of an Athena data source
- 1Write a custom IAM policy that satisfies least privilege for a single S3 prefix
- 2Grant Lake Formation permissions and verify them from Athena and from Redshift
- 3Rotate a database credential with Secrets Manager and update the consumer
- 4Configure an S3 Access Point and an AWS PrivateLink endpoint
- 5Compare role-based, tag-based, and attribute-based authorisation on the same scenario
- 1Encrypt an S3 bucket with a customer managed KMS key and grant cross-account access
- 2Run Amazon Macie against a bucket containing sample PII
- 3Use AWS Config to view configuration changes in the account
- 4Set up Redshift data sharing between two clusters
- 5Write down how to block backups or replication into disallowed Regions
- 1Sit the AWS Skill Builder official practice exam under 130-minute timed conditions
- 2Score each domain separately and compare against the 34, 26, 22, and 18 percent weights
- 3Rebuild the weakest domain's hands-on labs rather than rereading notes
- 4List every service you could not place in a category and reread its overview page
- 5Book the real exam so the remaining weeks have a fixed deadline
- 1For each of ten scenarios, pick the cheapest service that meets the stated requirement
- 2Compare provisioned against serverless for Redshift, EMR, and Aurora
- 3Practise questions that ask for the least operational overhead rather than the fastest option
- 4Review AWS Budgets and Cost Explorer, both of which are in scope
- 5Re-read the four task statements for the 34 percent ingestion domain in full
- 1Sit a second full timed practice exam and target above 720 with margin
- 2Time yourself per question and confirm you finish with at least 10 minutes spare
- 3Drill multiple response questions, which take longer than multiple choice
- 4Re-read every version 1.1 addition: Iceberg, S3 Tables, vector indexes, SageMaker Unified Studio
- 5Confirm your Pearson VUE profile name matches your government-issued ID exactly
- 1Review your decision tables for data stores, transformation services, and orchestration services
- 2Re-read the in-scope services list and confirm you can place every entry in a category
- 3If testing online, complete the system test on the exact machine and network you will use
- 4Prepare two forms of identification for the test centre or the online session
- 5Stop learning new material 48 hours out and rehearse pacing instead
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Best Study Resources
AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) exam guide
Official exam guideThe authoritative source for the four domain weights, every task and skill statement, the 720 passing score, the 50 scored and 15 unscored question split, and the in-scope and out-of-scope service lists. Currently version 1.1, published 12 December 2025.
Free
Official Pretest: AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01)
Practice examAWS-authored practice exam with 65 questions and a 130-minute limit, matching the real exam's length and timing exactly. Use it as a full dress rehearsal rather than a study tool.
Included with an AWS Skill Builder subscription
AWS Skill Builder exam prep plan for Data Engineer - Associate
Structured courseAWS's own preparation path, organised by exam domain so the time you spend maps onto the published weights rather than onto whatever a third-party author found interesting.
Free tier available, with additional content on subscription
AWS Certification FAQs
Policy referenceStates the 14-calendar-day retake wait, the absence of any attempt limit, the full-fee-per-attempt rule, the two-year block on retaking a passed exam, and the five-business-day results window.
Free
AWS Certification Before Testing policies
Policy referenceCovers identification requirements including the secondary ID rule, the 24-hour reschedule cut-off, the limit of two reschedules per appointment, and how to request the ESL +30 MINUTES accommodation.
Free
AWS Glue documentation
Product documentationGlue appears in both the streaming and batch source lists, in the transformation service list, in orchestration through Glue workflows, and in cataloguing through the Glue Data Catalog and crawlers. No other single service spans as many task statements.
Free
Amazon Redshift documentation
Product documentationNamed in all four domains: as an ingestion source, a storage choice, a schema design target, a SQL query engine, and a data sharing and authorisation surface. Federated queries, materialised views, and Redshift Spectrum are all explicit skills.
Free
AWS Lake Formation documentation
Product documentationThe permission model that the security domain tests against Redshift, EMR, Athena, and S3, plus its role in PII identification with Amazon Macie. Lake Formation questions are commonly missed by candidates who only know plain IAM.
Free
Apache Iceberg on AWS documentation
Product documentationOpen table formats entered the scored content in exam guide version 1.1. Read how Iceberg handles schema evolution, time travel, and partition evolution on S3, Athena, Glue, and EMR.
Free
AWS Recertification page
Policy referenceConfirms the three-year validity period and the 50 percent discount voucher deposited in your AWS Certification Account, which can be spent on recertification or on any future AWS exam.
Free
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Splitting study time evenly across the four domains.
Data Ingestion and Transformation is 34 percent and Data Security and Governance is 18 percent, so ingestion carries roughly twice the scored weight of security. Allocate hours in proportion to 34, 26, 22, and 18 rather than 25 each.
Studying an older copy of the exam guide.
Version 1.1 was published on 12 December 2025 and added Apache Iceberg, Amazon S3 Tables, vector index types including HNSW and IVF, large language model integration, and Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio. Check the Revisions page before trusting any course you bought earlier.
Preparing for machine learning content.
AWS lists performing ML training and inference as out of scope for the target candidate, along with programming-language-specific syntax and drawing business conclusions from data. Amazon SageMaker AI and Amazon Bedrock are in scope as services you integrate with, not as models you train.
Picking the most capable service instead of the cheapest one that works.
Task 1.2.4 is optimising costs while processing data and task 2.1.1 is implementing storage for specific cost and performance requirements. When two options both satisfy the stated requirement, the one with lower cost or lower operational overhead is the intended answer.
Leaving questions blank when time runs short.
AWS states that unanswered questions are scored as incorrect and there is no penalty for guessing. A guess has positive expected value on every item, so clear every blank before the clock ends.
Chasing a passing mark in each domain.
AWS uses a compensatory scoring model. You need 720 overall and do not need to reach a threshold in any individual section. The section classifications on your score report are directional feedback, and AWS itself advises caution when interpreting them.
Confusing Kinesis Data Streams with Kinesis Data Firehose.
Both appear in the in-scope Analytics list and both ingest streaming data, but they differ on retention, replay, consumer model, and buffering. Questions frequently hinge on whether replay or near-real-time delivery to a destination is required.
Knowing IAM but not Lake Formation.
Task 4.2.4 is managing permissions through Lake Formation for Redshift, EMR, Athena, and S3. Lake Formation grants operate at table and column level and interact with IAM rather than replacing it. Practise granting and revoking, then verifying from two different query engines.
Booking a retake before the waiting period ends.
AWS requires 14 calendar days between a failure and the next attempt. There is no limit on total attempts, but the full $150 fee applies each time, so use the 14 days to rebuild the weakest domain rather than to re-sit blind.
Arriving with only one form of identification.
AWS requires valid government-issued identification establishing residence in a non-sanctioned country, and a secondary form of ID is still required. If you do not hold a qualifying government-issued ID from the country you are testing in, an international travel passport from your country of citizenship must be your primary ID.
Exam Day Tips
- 1
Work to 2 minutes per question. At 65 questions in 130 minutes, finishing question 33 at the 66-minute mark keeps you exactly on schedule.
- 2
Read the last sentence of the question stem first. It usually contains the constraint, such as least cost, least operational overhead, or near real time, that decides between two workable answers.
- 3
On multiple response items, count the required selections stated in the question before reading the options, then eliminate rather than hunt.
- 4
Flag anything that takes more than three minutes and move on. Fifteen of the 65 questions are unscored, so a hard item may not even count.
- 5
Answer every question before time expires, because unanswered items score as incorrect and guessing carries no penalty.
- 6
Bring two forms of identification, with the primary one government-issued and the name matching your Pearson VUE booking exactly.
- 7
For online testing, clear your desk completely and run the system test on the same machine and network you will use, before exam day.
- 8
Do not expect a pass or fail message on screen. Most AWS certification exams do not display the result at the end, and detailed results appear in your AWS Certification Account within five business days.
- 9
If you need the ESL +30 MINUTES accommodation, request it before registering. It only needs to be requested once and then applies to all future registrations.
- 10
Missing the appointment forfeits the fee but does not record a fail, and you can register again 24 hours after the missed slot.
Career Paths & Salary Ranges
Analytics engineer or BI developer
Builds the SQL layer and dashboards on top of the warehouse. The exam's Athena, Redshift SQL, QuickSight, and data quality content maps directly onto this work, and DEA-C01 is often the first credential asked for in the job posting.
$103,790 US median (BLS computer systems analysts, May 2024)
Data engineer
The role the certification is designed for. AWS targets someone with 2 to 3 years of data engineering experience and 1 to 2 years of hands-on AWS work, which is exactly the profile of a mid-level data engineer on an AWS platform team.
$123,100 US median (BLS database administrators and architects, May 2024)
Data platform security and governance engineer
Owns Lake Formation permissions, KMS key policies, Macie PII scans, CloudTrail audit trails, and Region restrictions. The 18 percent Data Security and Governance domain covers the whole remit of this role.
$124,910 US median (BLS information security analysts, May 2024)
Data pipeline software engineer
Writes the Lambda functions, Glue scripts, and CDK stacks rather than configuring managed services through the console. Task 1.4 on programming concepts, covering Lambda concurrency, IaC, and software engineering practice, is written for this role.
$131,450 US median (BLS software developers, May 2024)
Data architect
Chooses the data stores, the table formats, and the schema evolution strategy for the whole platform. The 26 percent Data Store Management domain, including Iceberg, vector indexes, and schema design across Redshift, DynamoDB, and Lake Formation, is the architect's decision set.
$140,910 US median (BLS computer and information research scientists, May 2024)
Prerequisites & Requirements
- No mandatory prerequisite certification, degree, or exam. Anyone can register for DEA-C01.
- AWS recommends the equivalent of 2 to 3 years of experience in data engineering.
- AWS recommends at least 1 to 2 years of hands-on experience with AWS services.
- You should be able to structure SQL queries and run them on AWS services.
- You should understand the effects of volume, variety, and velocity on ingestion, transformation, modelling, security, governance, privacy, schema design, and data store design.
- You should be able to compare AWS services on cost, performance, and functional differences.
- Valid government-issued identification establishing residence in a non-sanctioned country, plus a secondary form of ID.
- An AWS Certification Account, used for scheduling through Pearson VUE and for retrieving results and benefits.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the DEA-C01 exam cost?
The exam is $150 USD, the standard AWS associate-tier price. You can pay by credit card or with an exam voucher. Pearson VUE accepts Visa, American Express, Mastercard, and JCB. Local pricing varies with currency and AWS notes that rescheduling after a currency exchange update does not require paying any difference.
How long is the exam and how many questions does it have?
130 minutes and 65 questions. Fifty of those questions affect your score. The other 15 are unscored questions that AWS uses to evaluate items for future use as scored questions, and they are not identified on the exam. That works out to exactly 2 minutes per question if you spread the time evenly.
What is the passing score?
720 on a scaled score of 100 to 1,000. AWS sets the standard through subject matter experts following certification industry practice, and uses scaled scoring so that scores are equated across exam forms of slightly different difficulty. The exam is pass or fail; there is no grade above passing.
Do I need to pass every domain?
No. AWS uses a compensatory scoring model, so you only need to pass the overall exam. Your score report may contain a table of classifications showing performance at each section level, but AWS advises caution when interpreting that feedback because sections carry different numbers of questions.
What are the four domains and their weights?
Data Ingestion and Transformation at 34 percent, Data Store Management at 26 percent, Data Operations and Support at 22 percent, and Data Security and Governance at 18 percent. These are weights of the scored content and they sum to 100 percent. AWS publishes them in the DEA-C01 exam guide.
How long do I wait to retake if I fail?
Fourteen calendar days. There is no limit on the number of attempts you may make, but you pay the full $150 registration fee for every attempt. AWS grants no free retake outside of specific promotional campaigns, and any promotional retake terms are published with the campaign.
What happens if I fail?
Nothing beyond the fee and the 14-day wait. Your detailed results appear in your AWS Certification Account under Exam History within five business days, including section-level classifications that show which of the four domains were weakest. Use those to redirect study before the retake.
When do I get my result?
Within five business days, in your AWS Certification Account under Exam History. AWS sends an email when results are posted. Most AWS certification exams do not display a pass or fail result on screen at the end of the test. If you pass, the Credly digital badge email may arrive before the results post to your account.
How long is the certification valid and how do I recertify?
Three years. AWS deposits a 50 percent discount voucher in your AWS Certification Account, which you can spend on recertification or on any future AWS exam. When you recertify, three years are added from the date you complete the recertification. You cannot retake the same exam within two years of passing it unless AWS republishes it under a new exam guide and series code.
What identification do I need?
Valid government-issued identification establishing residence in a non-sanctioned country, plus a secondary form of ID. If you do not have a qualifying government-issued ID from the country where you are testing, an international travel passport from your country of citizenship must be presented as your primary ID, and a secondary ID is still required. European Union IDs are treated as an exception to the residence rule.
Can I take the exam online?
Yes. AWS offers both a Pearson VUE test centre and an online proctored option for DEA-C01. Online testing requires a quiet private room, a cleared workspace, a webcam, and a stable connection. Complete the system test on the same machine and network beforehand rather than discovering a problem at check-in.
What materials am I allowed during the exam?
None. AWS exams are closed book at both test centres and online. No notes, no reference material, no calculator, and no access to documentation. Test centres may provide an erasable noteboard under their own rules, so confirm with the centre when booking rather than assuming.
Can I reschedule or cancel?
Yes, up to 24 hours before the scheduled appointment, with no additional fee. Each exam appointment can only be rescheduled twice; a third change requires cancelling and booking again. Inside the 24-hour window you cannot cancel or reschedule, the test delivery provider charges the full delivery fee, and refunds are not available.
What if I miss my appointment?
You forfeit the exam fee and are not eligible for a refund, and you cannot register again until 24 hours after the missed exam time. Missing the exam does not record a fail status. In cases of personal illness or unforeseen emergency, with appropriate documentation, the test delivery provider will waive the fee and allow a reschedule.
How do I request accommodations?
Accommodations must be requested before scheduling each exam, in coordination with the test delivery provider. For Pearson VUE-granted accommodations you request directly with Pearson VUE and are then given instructions to schedule your appointment over the phone. Separately, the ESL +30 MINUTES accommodation adds 30 minutes for non-native English speakers taking the exam in English and only needs to be requested once.
Which languages is the exam offered in?
English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. If you take the written exam in one of the available languages, the proctor will speak English, Japanese, or Spanish. The alternative is to take the exam in English and request the ESL accommodation for the extra 30 minutes.
Does AWS publish a pass rate?
No. AWS does not publish pass rates for DEA-C01 or for any other certification exam. Its published data covers the 720 cut score, the 100 to 1,000 scale, the compensatory model, and the question counts. Any pass rate figure attributed to this exam comes from a third party rather than from AWS.
How does DEA-C01 compare with the Solutions Architect - Associate exam?
Both are associate tier, both cost $150, and both run 130 minutes with 65 questions. Solutions Architect - Associate spans compute, networking, storage, and resilience across the whole platform, while DEA-C01 concentrates on pipelines, data stores, and governance, with 34 percent of its scored content on ingestion and transformation alone. Take DEA-C01 if your work is pipelines and warehouses rather than application infrastructure.
How does DEA-C01 compare with the Machine Learning Engineer - Associate exam?
DEA-C01 stops where model training begins. AWS lists performing ML training and inference as out of scope for the data engineer target candidate, so Amazon SageMaker AI and Amazon Bedrock appear only as services you feed and integrate. Machine Learning Engineer - Associate covers the training, tuning, deployment, and monitoring of models themselves.
Is there an official practice exam?
Yes. AWS publishes an official pretest for DEA-C01 on AWS Skill Builder with 65 questions and a 130-minute limit, matching the real exam's structure. Treat it as a timed rehearsal near the end of preparation rather than as a study source, because its value is in exposing pacing problems and weak domains.
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