Talend Exams

The Talend Ecosystem and Qlik Acquisition

Founded in 2005 as an open-source data integration vendor, Talend built its reputation on connecting disparate data sources before cloud data warehousing became the default. In May 2023, data analytics platform Qlik acquired Talend. This merger integrated Talend's data pipeline and transformation tools directly into Qlik's enterprise analytics portfolio. For data engineers and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) developers, Talend remains a fixture in enterprise environments that require complex data orchestration and quality checks.

The Data Integration Developer Path

Talend focuses its certification program on practical execution within Talend Studio. Instead of offering dozens of niche credentials, the company tests core development skills that apply across its data fabric.

The Talend Data Integration Certified Developer exam measures your ability to build, analyze, and test data integration Jobs. It targets professionals who spend their days moving data from source systems to target destinations while applying business logic along the way.

What the Exam Covers

The Talend Data Integration Certified Developer exam requires hands-on familiarity with the Talend Studio graphical interface. You must know how to configure metadata, access files and databases, and manage data flows.

A major portion of the test focuses on the tMap component. You will need to join multiple data sources, define join settings, capture rejected records, and configure filtering conditions. The exam also tests orchestration. You must understand how to pass parameters using context variables, override those variables in child Jobs, and build Joblets to encapsulate repetitive logic. Performance tuning appears frequently, specifically regarding the different parallelization options available in Talend Studio and how to profile Job execution.

Format and Passing Requirements

The exam runs for 90 minutes and contains 55 multiple-choice questions. You need a score of 70% to pass.

Talend recommends at least six months of direct experience using its products before attempting the test. Theoretical knowledge of ETL concepts is not enough. The questions present specific configuration scenarios within Talend Studio, asking you to identify the correct component settings, project management strategies, or troubleshooting steps for common deployment errors.

Career Value in the Qlik Era

The Qlik acquisition shifted Talend from a standalone integration tool to a foundational layer of a broader analytics ecosystem. Employers migrating legacy on-premises databases to cloud environments look for developers who can build repeatable, error-resistant data pipelines.

With Qlik embedding Talend's infrastructure into its cloud platform, the demand for these specific skills now extends beyond traditional ETL roles. Database administrators and analytics engineers increasingly need to know how to configure tMap joins and build Joblets to feed business intelligence engines, making this credential a direct proof of capability for modern data integration tasks.