Magento 2 Professional Developer Certification - My Journey

I made it.

This was my first thought after the magic word “PASS” on the monitor screen after the completion of a Magento 2 Professional Developer Certification exam.

A while ago I saw news from Magento company that the new Magento 2 certification for developers had been launched. The official launch date is 1 March, 2018. The best idea came into my mind was to try and pass the exam in order to get the certificate. I’m a kind of person who does not follow the rule to have all Magento certifications or any other certifications. Especially, when I used to work in the Magento core team and worked on building both Magento 1 and Magento 2 platforms.

Surprisingly, I’ve received lots of questions on how the exam went for me and what is the best way to pass the exam. I’ve decided to share my experience over the blog.

Brave yourself and be ready for my next statement of truth. Because you can read something different than I can usually write.

I’ve spent no time preparing for the Magento 2 Professional Developer Certification exam.

The reason behind it is my background. You may know me as an active Magento Community member with a strong focus to share as much information as possible regarding Magento 2 development practices and my personal experience working with the eCommerce platform.

For a last couple of years, I’ve successfully launched Magento 2 Blog, Magento DevChannel - YouTube channel to help developers with Magento 2 customizations, a couple of Magento 2 websites, received an award together with my team for the best Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration during the Magento Imagine 2017.

I was actually surprised to see all the congratulation comments and likes across different social channels when I published a post about successful completion of the Magento 2 Professional Developer Certification. I really appreciate them, thank you for the support.

Back to the exam details.

The certification consists of 60 questions which intend to cover different aspects of a developer’s knowledge and skills. You will find very minimum number of memory questions which ask you to know exact line of the code in an exact file where a class constant is declared. Such questions were a base for Magento 1 certification exam.

Magento U team together with Magento Community did a great job. They came up with a plan and later with the list of questions which covers the following aspects:

  • Practical questions which require real experience working and customizing Magento 2
  • Magento Framework questions designed to check your Magento 2 out of the box functionality
  • UI Components, layouts, XML configurations
  • Magento Admin panel and its configuration settings
  • Magento Framework and its PHP classes and interfaces
  • Almost no questions asking you to know exact line of the code in order to answer
  • Questions related to a basic understanding of “why” a Magento 2 module e.g. The purpose of the MagentoVault module
  • Lots of interesting business case-related questions

During the exam I didn’t notice any Magento Commerce (formerly Enterprise Edition) questions, even though, Magento U states that the exam covers both Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce products.

Was I worry about my result at the end of the exam? Yes, of course. As every single human being, I was hoping to get a PASS at the end. And I was really happy afterward. It is like “a new achievement unlocked”.

In case you would like to prepare to the certifications, I’ve prepared a couple of advices which will help you to successfully pass the exam.

How to prepare for the exam?

I’ve received hundreds of questions on how to prepare and pass a Magento 2 Professional Developer Certification exam. Whether I can share specific questions and answers for those, who are about to go and pass the exam. The short answer is: there is no list of the right answers for all questions. The exam is built in the way that a developer willing to pass the exam should have a real practical experience with Magento 2.

My story is different as I was the part of the Magento family who was building Magento 2. Basically, I have been working with Magento 2 since 2013, every single day (sometimes during my vacation and weekends).

Here are few tips for passing the Magento 2 Professional Developer Certification exam:

  • Build 2-3 own Magento 2 modules which cover a real-life business case. It will give you a good understanding of how to work with Magento code
  • Read Magento 2 technical blogs. Usually, Magento developers share their experience on how to solve a Magento 2 specific problem in the code
  • Watch videos from Magento developers about the development
  • Play around the Magento admin to understand how it works and what configuration settings are available
  • Customize Sales, Checkout, Payment, Shopping cart functionalities to understand how it works
  • Ideally, build a Magento 2 website and launch it
  • Attend a Magento 2 developer training or find a Magento mentor who will help you to understand and write Magento 2 code better

Long story short, now I am Magento 1 and Magento 2 certified developer, even though I think I don’t really need these certifications. I know lots of developers who have Magento certifications but when they write code… and I know developers without a single certification and their code is a brilliant example for everyone.

It is likely Merchants considering during the next e-commerce project planning different factoring, including a number of Magento certifications when selecting a Magento Development Agency or a Magento Developer. Which is also a fair point.

The only shortcut for passing the Magento 2 Professional Developer Certification exam can be your practical experience with Magento 2. You may find some answers online, however it is worth getting and building your personal knowledge and get as much experience as you can on real-life Magento 2 projects. Then, the exam will be just a matter of 90 minutes long or less.