Who the exam is for
Confluent describes the CCDAK as the certification for “developers and solution architects who build applications with Apache Kafka®”. It validates “the essential knowledge needed to develop, deploy, and maintain robust, real-time streaming applications using Kafka's core APIs and platform capabilities”.
The 2020 blueprint recommends 6 to 12 months of hands-on experience. You won't write any code during the exam, but you'll read configurations and work out how clients behave.
How the questions work
The blueprint describes questions with four or more options, where you pick one answer, or several in multiple-response questions. The current certification page adds matching and list-order questions. Read every option before you answer, because the wrong ones are often close to right.
What Confluent doesn't publish
Confluent's certification page doesn't give the number of questions or the passing score. If you see an exact figure somewhere else, take it with a pinch of salt, and aim to score well above any likely pass mark on the practice exams.
Booking it
You buy the exam in Confluent's training catalog, where it's listed at USD 150, and take it online. We'd wait until your mock exam scores are steady before booking. The exam cost page has what a retake costs.
On the day
Test your webcam, microphone and Chrome before the session starts. Keep an eye on the clock, because 90 minutes goes quickly when several options look right, and flag the questions you're unsure of so you can come back to them at the end.
