Confluent Certified Developer - Study Plan¶

6-Week Comprehensive Study Schedule¶

Week 1: Kafka Fundamentals and Architecture¶

Day 1-2: Core Concepts¶

• Study Kafka architecture (brokers, topics, partitions, segments)
• Understand replication (leader, follower, ISR)
• Learn about ZooKeeper role and KRaft mode
• Hands-on: Install Confluent Platform via Docker
• Lab: Create topics with different partition counts and replication factors
• Review Notes: 01-kafka-fundamentals.md

Day 3-4: Topic Design and Configuration¶

• Study topic-level configurations (retention, cleanup policy, compression)
• Learn partitioning strategies and key selection
• Understand log compaction vs log deletion
• Hands-on: Configure topics with different retention and compaction settings
• Lab: Produce messages with keys and observe partition assignment
• Review Notes: 01-kafka-fundamentals.md

Day 5-6: Message Delivery Semantics¶

• Study at-most-once, at-least-once, and exactly-once delivery
• Understand idempotent producers and transactional messaging
• Learn about consumer offset management
• Hands-on: Configure idempotent producer and observe behavior
• Lab: Implement transactional producer with atomic writes

Day 7: Week 1 Review¶

• Complete fundamentals practice questions
• Review any weak areas identified
• Summarize key configuration parameters

Week 2: Producer API Deep Dive¶

Day 8-9: Producer Configuration¶

• Study all critical producer configs (acks, retries, batch.size, linger.ms)
• Understand buffering and batching behavior
• Learn compression options and trade-offs
• Hands-on: Build a Java/Python producer with custom configuration
• Lab: Benchmark throughput with different batch and compression settings
• Review Notes: 02-producer-consumer-api.md

Day 10-11: Producer Patterns¶

• Implement custom partitioners
• Study callback-based asynchronous sending
• Learn error handling and retry strategies
• Hands-on: Build producer with custom partitioner and callbacks
• Lab: Implement producer with error handling and dead letter queue

Day 12-13: Serialization¶

• Study built-in serializers (String, Integer, ByteArray)
• Learn Avro serialization with Schema Registry
• Understand Protobuf and JSON Schema serialization
• Hands-on: Produce Avro messages with Schema Registry integration
• Lab: Test schema evolution with backward and forward changes

Day 14: Week 2 Review¶

• Complete producer API practice questions
• Review producer configuration defaults and tuning
• Build a production-ready producer application

Week 3: Consumer API Deep Dive¶

Day 15-16: Consumer Groups and Rebalancing¶

• Study consumer group mechanics and partition assignment
• Understand rebalance triggers and protocols
• Learn cooperative vs eager rebalancing
• Hands-on: Run multiple consumers in a group and observe assignments
• Lab: Simulate consumer failures and observe rebalancing
• Review Notes: 02-producer-consumer-api.md

Day 17-18: Offset Management¶

• Study auto-commit vs manual commit (sync and async)
• Understand auto.offset.reset behavior
• Learn offset storage and the __consumer_offsets topic
• Hands-on: Implement manual offset commit with at-least-once semantics
• Lab: Implement exactly-once consumption with manual offset management

Day 19-20: Consumer Tuning and Patterns¶

• Study max.poll.records, max.poll.interval.ms, session.timeout.ms
• Learn multi-threaded consumer patterns
• Understand consumer lag monitoring
• Hands-on: Tune consumer for high-throughput and low-latency scenarios
• Lab: Build consumer with graceful shutdown and rebalance listener

Day 21: Week 3 Review¶

• Complete consumer API practice questions
• Review consumer configuration defaults
• End-to-end producer-consumer application test

Week 4: Kafka Streams¶

Day 22-23: Stream Processing Basics¶

• Study Kafka Streams architecture (topology, tasks, threads)
• Learn KStream and KTable abstractions
• Understand stateless transformations (filter, map, flatMap, branch)
• Hands-on: Build a simple stream processing application
• Lab: Implement filtering and transformation pipeline
• Review Notes: 03-kafka-streams.md

Day 24-25: Stateful Operations¶

• Study aggregations (count, aggregate, reduce)
• Learn windowing types (tumbling, hopping, sliding, session)
• Understand state stores and changelog topics
• Hands-on: Implement windowed aggregation application
• Lab: Build real-time analytics with count and aggregate

Day 26-27: Joins and Advanced Topics¶

• Study join types (KStream-KStream, KStream-KTable, KTable-KTable)
• Learn GlobalKTable for enrichment joins
• Understand interactive queries for state store access
• Hands-on: Implement stream-table join for data enrichment
• Lab: Build interactive query endpoint for state store

Day 28: Week 4 Review¶

• Complete Kafka Streams practice questions
• Review join semantics and windowing rules
• Build end-to-end stream processing application

Week 5: Connect, Schema Registry, and ksqlDB¶

Day 29-30: Kafka Connect¶

• Study Connect architecture (workers, connectors, tasks)
• Learn standalone vs distributed mode
• Understand Single Message Transforms (SMTs)
• Hands-on: Deploy FileSource and FileSink connectors
• Lab: Configure JDBC source connector with transforms
• Review Notes: 04-connect-and-schema-registry.md

Day 31-32: Schema Registry¶

• Study schema compatibility modes (backward, forward, full, transitive)
• Learn subject naming strategies
• Understand schema references and nested types
• Hands-on: Register schemas via REST API
• Lab: Test compatibility by evolving schemas through versions
• Review Notes: 04-connect-and-schema-registry.md

Day 33-34: ksqlDB¶

• Study ksqlDB streams and tables
• Learn push queries vs pull queries
• Understand persistent queries and materialized views
• Hands-on: Create streams, tables, and persistent queries
• Lab: Build real-time dashboard with push queries
• Review Notes: 05-ksqldb.md

Day 35: Week 5 Review¶

• Complete Connect, Schema Registry, and ksqlDB practice questions
• Review connector configuration and SMTs
• Review schema compatibility rules

Week 6: Exam Preparation¶

Day 36-37: Full Practice Exams¶

• Take first full-length practice exam
• Review all incorrect answers with documentation
• Identify weak domains and knowledge gaps
• Create flashcards for missed concepts

Day 38-39: Targeted Review¶

• Focus study on weakest domains
• Review all configuration defaults and critical settings
• Practice scenario-based questions
• Review fact sheet and key numbers

Day 40-41: Final Review¶

• Take second full-length practice exam
• Review producer/consumer configuration table
• Review schema compatibility matrix
• Review Kafka Streams join requirements
• Light review of all notes

Day 42: Exam Day Preparation¶

• Quick review of fact sheet
• Review common pitfalls and tricky topics
• Ensure exam environment is ready
• Rest and prepare mentally

Domain Study Time Allocation¶