Associate Spark Developer Certification

Yesterday I took (and passed with more than 90% yay!) the Associate Spark Developer Certificaton. And before I forget I want to share my experience:

In general:

• First of all, I needed to install Windows as there was no Linux support for the control software used during the exam.
• Secondly, you need to disable both the antivirus and the firewall before joining. I didn’t disable the antivirus and the technician contacted me as there was a problem with the webcam despite I was able to see myself.
• It is a controlled window started by the software, not a browser page (I had a good zoom on the example docs they provide, and well not the same on the software window).
• You can mark the questions for reviewing them later.

About the exam:

1. The practice exam is a really good practice field, I saw at least 6 questions that I had practiced before.
2. In earlier posts I dug into the architecture and execution part. If you have a solid background the questions are really easy.
3. The provided API is a pdf. You better practice with the one given before or you may have a bad time looking for the functions and the column functions.
4. Most questions should be read carefully as they are quite simple and the correct answer may depend on a single word in the question.

If you are used to working with the spark API you should be able to pass it too. Here is a list of the post I’ve published (I know that there are some typos I found myself while practicing but god knows I deserve some rest!)

1. Spark Architecture
2. Spark Execution
3. Spark Structured Api
4. Spark Data Sources
5. Spark Udf-Udaf
6. Spark Dates

And if you want to take the practice exam interactively here it is

I would like to add an entry for the Garbage Collector but I ended up reading the official docs and found it enough.