Like many other platforms and languages, Magento offers several degrees of certification, thus making it possible to highlight and enhance its skills and expertise on the different versions of the publisher.
Although this was questionable for Magento 1, Magento 2 certifications have significantly gained in maturity and intelligence and now guarantee robust achievements for those who have successfully taken the plunge.
You are invited today to review the entire panel available to date, and who knows, maybe encourage and convince some who still doubt the interest and the required level of the latter.
Why Two Levels of Certifications?
There are two levels to address standard Magento developers and expert Magento developers. In addition to having excellent command of developments, a project team can respond to the challenges of configuring the Magento cache and indexing. We expect more from certified magento developers, more than the quality of development and real leverage for improving the technical performance of our site. Certification ranges from design choices at the code level to mastery of Magento APIs, including expertise in data imports/exports. Of course, you will need to know in detail all the MVC components of the framework, router, controller, Model, vue.
Understand the different Magento 1 VS Magento 2 certifications
Magento 1 had four certifications at the time (these are no longer available today, the future End-Of-Life version requires):
- Developer: This certification was reserved for developers with approximately 1.5 / 2 years of minimum experience on the platform. The questions were based on the solution’s Community (CE) version.
- Developer Plus: Certification, which covered the aspects and functionalities present in the Enterprise version of the solution (EE). You could address topics such as ‘Full Page Cache’, customer segmentation, RMA, and partial and asynchronous indexers.
- Front End Developer: The latter, as its name suggests, was reserved for the Front End part of Magento, whether it be layouts, management and use of blocks, JavaScript, or even purely related concepts to HTML.
- Solution Specialist: Finally, the latter aimed to cover less technical but more functional and business-oriented aspects, thus making it possible to demonstrate knowledge and good use in the administration/web mastering sense of the various features present, both on the Community version and ‘Enterprise. This certification was the only one that was not reserved exclusively for technicians.
As Magento version 2 has expanded, the range of certifications is now also broader. To date, there are no less than seven different certifications:
- Associate Developer: This is the first validation level for developers and did not exist in the past. This certification allows you to quickly be passed without waiting to have several years of experience in realising Magento 2 projects individually or through magento development agency.
It is nonetheless devoid of meaning or interest, the support of revision and the scope of the questions being the same as for the ‘Professional Developer’ while being more affordable. Honestly, it could be almost at the same level as the ‘Developer’ certification of Magento 1.
- Professional Developer: One might think in terms of the name and prerequisites of the publisher that this certification would be the equivalent of the ‘Developer’ of Magento 1, but it is more extensive and more complex to obtain. Indeed, it is no longer a question here of reciting by heart on raw theoretical knowledge but of demonstrating understanding of good practices, and especially of their proper use. It is not uncommon to come across questions where all the answers are correct, but the level of production quality and maintainability varies. Therefore, it will always be necessary to keep a pragmatic vision when responding, making the exercise more delicate and much more challenging and relevant.
- Professional Developer Plus: It is the equivalent of Developer Plus, but ditto, relatively more complicated overall, and relating exclusively to the Commerce version (the equivalent of the Enterprise in M1)
- Professional Front End Developer: Certification relating to the Front End part exclusively, like its predecessor, with a relatively large scope, such as asset deployment, JavaScript customisation in jQuery, Knockout.js and RequireJS, LESS / CSS compilation, management caching, in addition to the traditional questions around XML layouts and templating.
- Professional JavaScript Developer: Purely JavaScript certification, for which the technologies around this language and their use in Magento have been scrutinised.
- Professional Cloud Developer: Here, we are focusing on the DevOps aspects related to the hosting Cloud offer offered by Magento in the Commerce version. Installation, deployment, debugging, administration and configuration will be discussed here.
- Solution Specialist: Certification similar to its equip in Magento 1.
Regarding price, the certifications are all displayed for $260, except for the Associate Developer certification, which is reduced to $195.
Finally, for the more adventurous, it will be possible to obtain a special badge called ‘Full Stack’, as a recognition, with a bonus, a small dedication on a dedicated page on the website of the parent company, the class!
To summarise, Magento 2 certifications have become more professional and hardened, which gives them much greater legitimacy, especially in choosing a profile, a team, and an agency.
Finally, and even if obtaining the latter is more complex for magento web developers than at the time, there is nothing to panic about with reasonable practice and preparation!
How to prepare to take a Magento certification
First of all, you have to choose the certification (s) for which the level of experience is suited to yours, or even with a small safety margin on the aspect ‘time spent on the platform’. For example, even with senior profiles, it is not uncommon to see Developer Plus certification failures, as the level is fine and rigorous. Therefore, there is no complex for being coherent and pragmatic to avoid a failure that is always difficult to cash.
Regarding the supports, SwiftOtter Solutions a magento development company offers comprehensive certification review guides. Formerly free, it is strongly recommended to invest a little more; this allows you to go through all the prerequisites necessary to pass the exam peacefully. In the paid offer, we also find multiple-choice tests with different pools of questions (7 questions are free, to get a brief idea), making it possible to identify the subjects to be explored quickly.
Finally, one can only recommend the following excellent community resources as well:
- tv for its excellent short format videos, very well explained, and produced by Vinai Kopp, guaranteeing quality!
- The blogs of Fooman, Atwix, and BelVG for the high quality of their posts.
- Github repository of ‘Magento notes ‘, containing other review material in Markdown format
To prepare for the exam as well as possible and to have enough time to go through and digest all the knowledge, a minimum of two days is required.
Magento certification: which exam format?
The test takes the form of an MCQ, made up of 60 questions, for 90 minutes, all in the language of Shakespeare.
Depending on the certification chosen, the percentage of correct answers to obtain varies between 62% and 68%.
The version of Magento also varies, between 2.2 and 2.3 to date, both in Open Source and Commerce, see Commerce Cloud. Visit the official certifications directory for more details.
The test is done in approved examination centres but can also be done remotely, provided with the necessary equipment and conditions. You can find numerous articles explaining the details of the prerequisites for a passage in such situations, which can, sometimes, facilitate the passages and especially reassure the candidates who would be in a familiar environment.
During the exam
First of all, and even if it may seem obvious, read the question carefully and the different answers proposed, several times if necessary, to ensure the correct understanding and the context. Ninety minutes for 60 questions, which are not all trick questions either, that’s still reasonable, so relax!
However, questions should raise doubts, do not hesitate to mark them for a future rereading. It is quite possible to review the questions put aside at any time during the exam. Do not be afraid to abuse this functionality because when in doubt, coming back to a question a few minutes later, or at the very end, is often beneficial.
As mentioned as a prerequisite in this article, always orient your answers in the direction of the best possible good practice, especially when several answers, or even all, seem correct to you. Finally, if you ever come to dry completely, continue, even if it means arbitrating at the very end.
Conclsuion: Once all the questions have been validated, you will only be one click away from the verdict, the result being displayed instantly at the end of the test, PASS or FAILED, with the detail in% by sections. In the case of FAILED, Magento offers a 20% discount voucher to retake the exam according to different deadlines. It is certainly not much, but it is still good to know. And once you PASS you’ll become a certication holder and start working for a reputed magento development firm.
