AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate

What I Learned from the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate Journey

Just wrapped up the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate, and let me tell you — this one was a real level-up.

💡 Real Takeaway? Understand the Data. Don’t Just Move It.

Before this, I was focused more on infra and deployment. But this cert forced me to think like a data engineer. Not just moving data around, but actually understanding it — the volume, velocity, variety — and what happens when you don’t respect those three V’s.

🔧 Built a Basic ETL Pipeline (Yes, with Dummy Data)

To get hands-on, I spun up a simple ETL pipeline:

• Extract: Dummy sales data from S3

• Transform: Cleaned and enriched it with AWS Glue

• Load: Stored the output in Redshift for querying

Hooked that up with QuickSight on top to build a dashboard that actually told a story — sales by region, monthly trends, product performance, etc.

Nothing fancy, but it felt good seeing raw data turn into actual insights that could drive decisions.

🧠 Gained Clarity on:

• Schema design and why bad choices kill performance

• When to use what (Glue vs. Lambda, Redshift vs. S3 vs. DynamoDB)

• Cost optimization — because you can easily burn cash if you don’t plan right

• The power of automation in monitoring and troubleshooting data flows

🙏 Big Shout-out

This wouldn’t have happened without Nikhil Ananad — your guidance and pressure made a huge difference. Appreciate you showing me where to dig deeper and not settle for the “just working” version.

✅ Summary

AWS Data Engineer Associate didn’t just give me a badge — it gave me a new mindset about working with data. Now I don’t just think about how to store it or move it, but what it’s saying and how to make it usable for better decision-making.

More to come. But this was a solid milestone.

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