As you might have seen in our previous blog posts (go read them if you haven’t), dbt is quite an amazing tool. My experience with it started about a year and a half ago, when I stepped into the world of data engineering. Before that, I had worked for two and a half years with Python in software engineering. Seeing how dbt is bringing numerous software best practices into data engineering, I really loved it from the start. After gaining experience for over a year and seeing all the things dbt has to offer, I just had to dive deeper into it. The dbt developer certificate gave me the perfect opportunity and guidance to get familiar with all of its best features. In this blog, I will go through all the steps I believe you need to take, in order to pass your dbt Analytics Engineering Certification Exam.
The study resources
Before starting to study, dbt recommends having over six months of experience with dbt Core or dbt Cloud. Although I believe you could pass the exam without this, it will save you a lot of study time. Check out their overview here: https://www.getdbt.com/certifications/analytics-engineer-certification-exam
What’s covered in the exam?
Looking at the page, my first tip would be to get familiar with the What’s covered in the exam? section. Check out which of these items you already have experience with, which you might just be familiar with, or which are completely new to you. Getting this division upfront will help you when diving into the Study guide section. I had already heard or read about most of the topics on the list, but I did not have experience yet with all of them. By identifying the lesser-known topics, I knew where to spend more time still.
The Study Guide
Next on the list is the Study Guide, a detailed overview of everything you need to know, what to study and where to find the right study materials. It starts off with some practical information on the exam format (duration, length, passing score…), which are important to know, but less content heavy. After that, the topic outline returns followed by some sample questions. These are not the best in my opinion, as there are only five questions so it cannot really be used to test yourself.
The Learning Path is definitely the most important section of this document. It will give you a list of checkpoints to work on, each with their own guidance on how to prepare. Here you can find what courses to take to get the right experience and which blog posts or documentation pages to read to get a deeper understanding of all the topics. I recommend going through all these links in detail, as you will learn a lot about some dbt features you might otherwise not think of. Each checkpoint will list the experience you should have at the end of it and which dbt commands you should now master.
Going through all this will take quite some time, but you will be ready to start testing your knowledge!
Test your knowledge
Unfortunately, there are no great practice exams delivered by dbt. So, I had to look further for a way to check if I had prepared enough. Luckily, dbt has a great community on Slack with a separate channel to talk about the certificate. In there, I saw a lot of people referencing qanalabs.com where I could find a course with no less than 13 (!!) practice exams, each consisting of 65 questions. These were still on the previous version of the exam, so I had to take that into account when doing these tests. As some topics, like dbt metrics, are no longer part of the certificate topics. Luckily, the qanalabs course has now been updated for the new version, and it now consists of 11 practice exams of 70 questions each.
I would like to make two sidenotes on the practice exams. The first one is small, but good to know. Just like in the actual exam, all questions are multiple choice. In some cases, you only have to select one answer and in some multiple answers might be true. In the qanalabs questions, that differentiation is not as clear as in the real questions. There were multiple questions where this cost me some points, but luckily it is much better during the exam. So, no need to get frustrated when running into this.
Secondly, you should know that qanalabs is in no way supported or authored by dbt itself. The course is maintained separately, and the author is active on the dbt slack community. This means that not all questions are perfect, and I have seen people disagreeing with some answers. Even though this can be frustrating, I believe they will give you clarity on where your gaps are and where you might need some more studying. And that is exactly what they are intended for according to the author.
Take the exam
When you are finally done studying and getting good scores on the practice tests, you are ready to take the exam and get certified. Back in the certification overview from dbt, you can just click through to schedule your exam. You will be monitored during the exam, so make sure you plan it when you will not be disturbed, and you can work in a silent, clean environment.
I planned my exam in the early afternoon, so that I could start my day with a relaxing coffee. I had some time to go over all my notes again and prepare my set up. I sat down and I was ready. The exam consists of 65 questions, and I feel like they were quite hard. But luckily, I prepared well and after submitting, I passed!
Of course, all this is just my experience in this challenge. I would like to list up the before mentioned resources to finish up, so you can really decide what will work best for you:
Dbt overview: https://www.getdbt.com/certifications/analytics-engineer-certification-exam
Qanalabs practice tests: https://www.qanalabs.com/courses/dbt-developer
Join the dbt community on Slack and checkout the #dbt-certification channel
Best of luck! And if you are in need of more dbt expertise, don’t hesitate to contact us for one of our consultants!
Daan Vandenreyt
Data Engineer
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