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Snowflake · Data & Analytics · Professional

SnowPro Advanced: Data Engineer exam guide

Exam DEA-C02

SnowPro Advanced: Data Engineer validates advanced skills in building data pipelines on Snowflake: ingesting from data lakes, APIs and on-premises systems, transforming and sharing data, near real-time streams, scalable compute and performance tuning. It is the most direct proof of senior Snowflake engineering skill in 2026.

Questions65
Time limit115 minutes
Passing score750 (0-1000 scale)
Exam fee$375 USD
Valid for2 years
DeliveryPearson VUE: online proctored or test center

Format: Multiple choice, multiple select and interactive items. Fee note: $300 in India.

Who it's for

Data engineers with 2+ years of hands-on Snowflake data engineering in production.

What the exam covers

Data Movement—
Performance Optimization—
Storage and Data Protection—
Data Governance—
Data Transformation—

A dash means the vendor does not publish a weight for that domain.

Eligibility & prerequisites

Required: Active SnowPro Core certification.

Recommended: 2+ years of hands-on data engineering with Snowflake in a production environment.

Keeping it active

Valid 2 years. Renew through Snowflake's Continuing Education program (eligible instructor-led training or a qualifying higher SnowPro certification) or by passing the shorter, lower-cost recertification exam within the window before expiry.

Skills & careers

Skills it validates

  • Snowpipe and Snowpipe Streaming ingestion
  • Streams, tasks and dynamic tables
  • Snowpark (Python) transformations
  • External tables, Iceberg tables and data lakes
  • Query and warehouse performance tuning
  • Data sharing and replication

Job roles

Senior Data EngineerAnalytics EngineerData Platform EngineerETL/ELT DeveloperData Architect

Where it fits in your path

Planning a degree too? See how this cert earns college credit in the College Credit Navigator.

Build my study plan

  1. Weeks 1-2: Data movement: stages, COPY, Snowpipe, Snowpipe Streaming, Kafka connector, external and Iceberg tables.
  2. Weeks 3-4: Transformation: streams and tasks, dynamic tables, stored procedures, UDFs and Snowpark Python.
  3. Week 5: Performance: query profile, clustering, materialized views, search optimization, warehouse sizing and multi-cluster.
  4. Week 6: Storage, protection and governance: Time Travel, cloning, replication, masking and row access policies.
  5. Week 7: Timed 65-question practice exams; review misses in Snowflake documentation.

Make it yours: pick your exam date and weekly hours. We'll split your time by domain weight and give you a printable plan.

Exam-day tips

  • Expect scenario questions that ask for the lowest-latency or lowest-cost ingestion pattern; know Snowpipe vs Snowpipe Streaming vs COPY trade-offs.
  • Know how streams behave (offsets, staleness) and how tasks are scheduled and chained.
  • Interactive items may ask you to order pipeline steps; practise reasoning through full pipelines.
  • Your SnowPro Core must be active when you sit the exam.

Key terms for this exam

All 43 terms Study with thinQcards™

Frequently asked questions

How much does DEA-C02 cost?

$375 per attempt ($300 in India).

Do I need SnowPro Core first?

Yes. An active SnowPro Core certification is required for all SnowPro Advanced exams.

How many questions are on DEA-C02?

65, including multiple choice, multiple select and interactive items.

How long is it valid?

Two years, renewable through Snowflake's Continuing Education options or recertification.

SnowPro Data Engineer vs Databricks Data Engineer?

Choose the platform your team uses; DEA-C02 is Snowflake-specific and goes deeper into Snowflake ingestion and performance features.

Official page: learn.snowflake.com. Reviewed November 2026. Vendors change fees and objectives, so confirm with the vendor before you book. Spot something out of date? Tell us.