The short version
DP-750 is Microsoft’s associate-level exam on data engineering with Azure Databricks. It tests whether you can set up a workspace, secure data with Unity Catalog, build ingestion and transformation logic in SQL and Python, and run pipelines in production. About two thirds of the weight sits in two domains: preparing data and deploying pipelines. This guide follows the study guide that Microsoft lists as “Skills measured as of October 19, 2026”.
What the exam is
The full name is Implementing Data Engineering Solutions Using Azure Databricks. Microsoft’s announcement calls the matching credential Microsoft Certified: Azure Databricks Data Engineer Associate. The exam sits at associate level, so it expects hands-on work, not just vocabulary.
Think of it as a job-role exam. A typical question describes a workplace situation, such as a nightly job that fails, a partner who needs shared data, or a table that keeps growing, and asks which feature or setting solves it. Many questions are really “which of these two similar features fits this constraint?” Examples are a materialized view versus a standard view, COPY INTO versus Auto Loader, or standard versus dedicated compute.
Who it is for
Microsoft’s audience profile describes someone with subject matter expertise in integrating and modeling data, building and deploying optimized pipelines, and troubleshooting and maintaining workloads in Azure Databricks. You should also have applied data quality and governance practices in Unity Catalog. Microsoft expects you to ingest and transform data with SQL and Python, to know software development lifecycle practices including Git, and to be familiar with Microsoft Entra, Azure Data Factory, and Azure Monitor.
In practice that fits data engineers, analytics engineers who are moving from SQL-only work into Spark, and platform engineers who administer Databricks workspaces. The prerequisites page lists what to know before you start.
Format at a glance
| Item | What we could confirm |
|---|---|
| Exam code | DP-750 |
| Level | Associate |
| Passing score | 700 or higher on a scale of 1 to 1,000 |
| Time | 120 minutes, per Microsoft’s DP-750 certification page |
| Number of questions | Not published; Microsoft says most exams have 40 to 60 |
| Languages | 10 languages: English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, German, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish; localized versions arrive about eight weeks after English updates |
| Renewal | Associate certifications expire annually and renew through a free online assessment |
Details on scoring, retakes, and question styles are on the exam format page.
The four domains and their weightings
| Domain | Weighting |
|---|---|
| Set up and configure an Azure Databricks environment | 15-20% |
| Secure and govern Unity Catalog objects | 15-20% |
| Prepare and process data | 30-35% |
| Deploy and maintain data pipelines and workloads | 30-35% |
Set up and configure an Azure Databricks environment
Choosing and configuring compute (job compute, serverless, SQL warehouses, classic and shared compute), and creating the Unity Catalog objects that hold your data: catalogs, schemas, volumes, tables, views, materialized views, and foreign catalogs. It also includes Genie instructions for data discovery.
Secure and govern Unity Catalog objects
Granting privileges, row- and column-level protection, secrets from Azure Key Vault, service principals and managed identities, then the governance layer: tags and attribute-based access control, row filters and column masks, retention, lineage, audit logging, and Delta Sharing.
Prepare and process data
The largest domain together with deployment. It covers data modeling choices (table formats, partitioning, clustering, slowly changing dimensions), ingestion with Lakeflow Connect, notebooks, SQL, change data capture, Structured Streaming, Event Hubs and Auto Loader, then cleaning, transforming, loading, and data quality constraints.
Deploy and maintain data pipelines and workloads
Pipeline design, Lakeflow Jobs (triggers, schedules, alerts, restarts), Git and testing, Declarative Automation Bundles, and the monitoring and tuning work: Spark UI, skew, spill, shuffle, OPTIMIZE and VACUUM, Log Analytics, and Azure Monitor alerts.
Official source
For the vendor’s own list of skills, see the Microsoft Learn DP-750 study guide. It is the final authority if anything here differs.
More guides for DP-750
- DP-750 Study Plan: 4-Week and 8-Week
- DP-750 Sample Questions With Answers
- Is DP-750 Hard? An Honest Difficulty Check
- DP-750 Renewal and Retakes Explained
- Is DP-750 Worth It? An Honest Look
- DP-750 Cheat Sheet: Key Facts to Review
- DP-750 vs DP-700: Which Exam First?
- DP-750 vs Databricks Data Engineer Pro
Next step
Read the domains explained page to see where your time should go. When you want to check yourself, our DP-750 practice tests are original practice sets built around these four domains.
Frequently asked questions
Does DP-750 expire?
Microsoft says associate, expert, and specialty certifications expire annually. You renew by passing a free, unproctored online assessment on Microsoft Learn during a six-month window before the expiry date.
Is DP-750 the same as DP-203?
No. DP-750 is about Azure Databricks. It centers on Unity Catalog, Lakeflow, and Delta tables, so study material built for other Azure data services will not cover it.
Do I need to know both SQL and Python?
Microsoft’s audience profile names both. You do not need to be an expert, but you should be able to read and reason about code in each.