How many questions are on the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam?

The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam has 65 questions, and the vendor's published description is: 65 questions; either multiple choice or multiple response, 130 minutes.

How long do you have to complete the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam?

You get 130 minutes, which is about 120 seconds per question. The published format is: 65 questions; either multiple choice or multiple response, 130 minutes.

What score do you need to pass the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam?

The passing score is 72% (720 or greater (on a scale of 100 to 1,000)).

What are the domains on the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam?

There are 4 domains: Data Governance and Security, Data Ingestion and Orchestration, Data Storage and Data Management, Data Processing and Transformation. The official weights are Data Governance and Security 22%, Data Ingestion and Orchestration 26%, Data Storage and Data Management 26%, Data Processing and Transformation 26%.

How should I use the domain weights when revising?

Weight by percentage, not by domain. 22% is the one where lost points cost you the most, and Certilum scores you per domain so you can see exactly where that is.

Does Certilum have practice questions for the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam?

Yes: 65 questions in our bank for this certification, each tagged to the exam domain it belongs to, with the official domain weights applied.

Exam format

AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate Exam Format

DEA-C01

Everything the official exam blueprint specifies: question count, time limit, scoring and the weight each domain carries. The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate certification (DEA-C01) is designed for data professionals who build and maintain data pipelines, manage data storage, and ensure data governance on AWS. The exam validates hands-on experience with core AWS data services like AWS Glue, Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Kinesis, and AWS Lake Formation. Candidates should have at least 1–2 years of practical experience working with data engineering workloads on AWS. This certification confirms the ability to design scalable, reliable, and secure data solutions that support analytics, machine learning, and business intelligence use cases.

65 questions

130 min

72% to pass

4 domains

certilum

Exam facts at a glance

The published specifications for this certification.

Specification	Value
Questions	65
Time limit	130 minutes (120s per question)
Passing score	72% — 720 or greater (on a scale of 100 to 1,000)
Domains	4
Level	Associate
Question bank here	65 questions
Published format	65 questions; either multiple choice or multiple response, 130 minutes
Source	Official exam specification, published by the vendor

Official domain weights

The percentage of the exam each domain carries. Weight your revision by these numbers, not by what you find hardest.

Domain	Weight	Topics	Practice Qs
Data Governance and Security	22%	Implement data access controls using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies, AWS Lake Formation permissions, and S3 bucket policies Encrypt data at rest and in transit using AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS), server-side encryption (SSE-S3, SSE-KMS), and TLS/SSL Manage data privacy and compliance by implementing data masking, tokenization, and adhering to regulations (GDPR, HIPAA) with AWS Artifact and AWS Config +1 more	14
Data Ingestion and Orchestration	26%	Implement and manage data ingestion pipelines (batch and streaming) using services like AWS Glue, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK), and AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) Orchestrate data pipelines using AWS Step Functions, Apache Airflow (Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow), and AWS Glue workflows Manage data pipeline triggers, scheduling, and event-driven execution with Amazon EventBridge and AWS Lambda +1 more	17
Data Storage and Data Management	26%	Design and provision data storage solutions using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Redshift, Amazon Aurora, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR) Define and manage data lifecycle policies (retention, archiving, and expiration) in Amazon S3 using S3 Lifecycle configurations and S3 Intelligent-Tiering Implement data lake architecture patterns (medallion architecture: bronze, silver, gold layers) on Amazon S3 and AWS Lake Formation +1 more	17
Data Processing and Transformation	26%	Build and maintain data processing jobs using AWS Glue (Spark), Amazon EMR (Spark, Hive, Presto), AWS Lambda, and Amazon Redshift Spectrum Transform data using -based transformations in Amazon Redshift, AWS Glue Studio, and Amazon Athena Implement data quality checks and validation rules using AWS Deequ (via AWS Glue) and custom validation logic +1 more	17

The heaviest domain is Data Governance and Security at 22%, and that is where lost points cost you the most. Certilum scores you per domain so you can see the difference between a knowledge gap and a formatting problem.

Note from the vendor record: Active as of 2026-09-29: no retirement, beta, or rename notice appears on the AWS 'Coming soon to AWS Certification' page or in the AWS Training and Certification September 2026 certification-updates blog (those cover MLA-C02, SAP-C03, DVA-C03). Official exam guide states the exam includes 50 scored plus 15 unscored questions (65 total) and a scaled 100–1,000 score with minimum passing 720, not the 750 figure sometimes cited. No prerequisites; recommended 2–3 years data engineering experience and 1–2 years hands-on AWS. Certification is valid 3 years (recertify by retaking the exam), and AWS has announced a Skill Builder training-based 'maintain' path in beta that is slated to include DEA later in 2026. Official exam page