A practical DE-PRO study plan you can follow: 30-day intensive, 60-day balanced, and 90-day part-time schedules with weekly focus, suggested hours/week, and practice-first tips for production pipeline questions.
This page answers the question most candidates actually have: “How do I structure my DE‑PRO prep?”
DE‑PRO rewards production instincts: correctness, recoverability, and performance trade-offs under constraints.
Use the plan that matches your available time, then follow the loop: Syllabus → drills → review misses → mixed sets → timed runs.
| Your starting point | Typical total study time | Best-fit timeline |
|---|---|---|
| You run production Spark/Delta pipelines already | 35–60 hours | 30–60 days |
| You know Spark but are newer to streaming/DLT ops | 60–90 hours | 60–90 days |
| You’re new to production pipeline ownership | 90–130+ hours | 90 days |
Choose a plan based on hours per week:
| Time you can commit | Recommended plan |
|---|---|
| 10–12 hrs/week | 30‑day intensive |
| 6–8 hrs/week | 60‑day balanced |
| 3–5 hrs/week | 90‑day part‑time |
Target pace: ~10–12 hours/week.
Goal: learn the blueprint quickly, then rely on mixed sets to harden judgment.
| Week | Focus | What to do | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Incremental batch pipelines | CDC/upserts, idempotency, backfills, multi-hop architecture. Do daily drills and start a miss log. | Syllabus • Cheatsheet |
| 2 | Structured Streaming | Triggers, watermarks, late data, state, checkpointing. Practice “what happens when X fails?” scenarios. | Cheatsheet • Practice |
| 3 | DLT + data quality | DLT pipeline structure, expectations, reliability and observability. Do 2 mixed sets this week. | Syllabus • Practice |
| 4 | Performance + reliability review | Shuffle/skew, file layout, caching, cluster sizing, and recovery playbooks. Finish with 2–3 timed mixed runs. | Practice • FAQ |
| Weeks | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Batch + Delta correctness (CDC, merges, backfills) |
| 3–4 | Streaming fundamentals (watermarks, state, checkpointing) |
| 5–6 | DLT + quality + orchestration |
| 7–8 | Performance tuning + mixed sets under time |
| Month | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Foundations (Delta correctness + incremental batch) |
| 2 | Streaming + DLT |
| 3 | Performance + troubleshooting + timed runs |