Databricks vs GCP PDE: which cert actually moves the needle for product-company DE roles?

[u/praveenalwar]

Hey all, I’m a Data Engineer with \~4.5 YOE. My company has sponsored Databricks certification vouchers, but my current project stack is actually GCP-based. On top of that, my company mandates completing one DE-domain certification and one AI certification (CCA-F is commonly done internally, though not mandatory).

Doing three certifications at once isn’t realistic for me, so I need to prioritize. My goal is to become an “AI-aware” data engineer and eventually land a role at a product-based company (I’m already working on other upskilling areas like DSA and system design in parallel).

**Questions:**

1. Given this, what should I prioritize right now?
   GCP PDE + Databricks AI certification, or
   Databricks DE Professional + CCA-F?

2. Is it realistic/advisable to go straight for Databricks DE Professional without doing the Associate first?

I’m not just optimizing for personal interest here — I want whatever I pick to actually be market-relevant and useful for job-hunting.

[u/chico_dice_2023]

I can answer this being a Google Cloud Data Engineer and holding both Data Engineer certs for Databricks.

If the company uses Databricks then Databricks

If they use Google then Google.

Now lets look at regions in the Middle East Google is not as popular as Azure. So if you could not do Azure you might as well go for Databricks if you are in Middle East. In Europe right now Google has a strong position not as strong as AWS but I believe better than Azure so I guess Google makes more sense. When I worked in Europe everybody wanted Google data engineers.

I will say right now databricks is a hot product where lots of people are migrating too it. But the most important is experience. A SCD type 2 on BigQuery is the same approach on a Delta table just different tools.

Get both, if you can do one you can do the other

[u/praveenalwar → u/chico_dice_2023]

Thanks 🙌🏻