Apache Spark Databricks training course prepares online retailer delegates for certification exams

A group of students from Northern Ireland took part in a training course on databricks as part of a wider technical program to turn the students into developers. The program had been set up and funded by a governmental department in Northern Ireland in order to attempt to convince and train students to join the technical sector in the country. The program developed by the department worked in collaboration with a major online clothing retailer who would extend job offers to the students capable of advancing into the technical world following the job.

The first section of the training program was ran internally by the regional college that the students were a part of, however, they needed to outsource the final two weeks of training on Databricks for Apache Spark with Python. The company was unable to source a sufficient instructor and so turned to JBI to ensure that a well-respected, interesting and educational course could be ran. JBI prioritised that instructors with good interpersonal skills were essential to cope with the communication and patience required for a group of students. Instructors needed to adapt delivery to suit the local audience yet maintain the core technology skills delivery to ensure technical competence at the end of the course.

Databricks for Apache Spark is very important for the students to learn because it provides on-scale simple and quick access to information by accelerating ETL processes and uncoupling storage from computers, utilising clouds such as AWS. Databricks also allows more use of data science and machine learning to build insightful, real time dashboards to improve business decisions. Moreover, businesses are interested in employees using Databricks because it combines these tools mentioned with governance and management to provide them with a cohesive solution to big data that limits complexity and produces high quality products.

Prior to the training, JBI arranged a technical consultation to specify requirement and agree customised content as may be required. On the call, the college gave JBI their intentions for the course. The course must prepare attendees to undertake and pass the Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark 3.0 Exam with Python.  The course must cover the format and structure of the exam and the skills needed including covering Python programming. In order to ensure the best possible preparation JBI also gave best practice advice and tips for passing the exam and gave guided tutorials going through official practice examination questions.

The training course lasted for two weeks and 20 students took part in it. The training course can be considered a success because the majority of students passed the certification and all of the students were offered jobs by the online retailer. Following the training course JBI also received positive feedback:

“The instructor has expert knowledge on Databricks and other IT subjects. I really liked the sections where there was coding experience.” TM, Student

For further information please see the links below:

Apache Spark Databricks training course

Azure Data Factory training course

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