Depending on your working circumstances, you may have been charged with “go become Magento certified.” Or, you may be on a quest to prove your skills in a market where the bar for becoming a bonafide partner is very high. Or, you may be required to become a “Magento Certified Professional Developer”.
No worries: you likely face the same pressure that developers do, too. Magento has prepared the Magento 2 Certified Solution Specialist (difficulty 7/10) exam for you. The good news is you don’t have to be a developer and know what interfaces or dependency injection are! The bad news is that this is a tough test.
This certification is for someone who is a mediator between a merchant and a team of developers.
This test covers:
Note that your experience should entirely be with a vanilla Magento 2 Commerce sandbox (with B2B enabled). That is what the test covers. If you do not have access, you will almost guaranteed fail the test. That’s kind of blunt, but it’s the truth as we’ve seen it.
This certification is for anyone who has not attained a Magento developer certification yet.
Magento recommends having completed the Magento U Fundamentals of Magento Development course. If you opt to not take that approach, you should have about 6 months of Magento experience (if you are already familiar with PHP development).
What you should know:
If this certification matches your job title, this is it! While it is more difficult than the Associate Developer, you could just start here.
Magento suggests having 1.5 years of experience. With practice and effort, you can reduce that significantly.
What you should know:
You must have access to a Magento Cloud environment. The Starter is all you need, and comes with the Community Insider program.
Magento recommends 6 to 12 months of experience with Magento Cloud, or 2 end-to-end deployments.
What you should know:
Before attempting this, you should already have at least one Magento 2 certification. This is an exceptionally difficult test.
Magento recommends at least 1.5 years of experience. Frankly, I see few with that much experience that can pass without study. We developers are often siloed to particular projects/merchants and don’t get a full range of opportunities.
What you should know:
This certification is for those who want to prove exceptional knowledge of Magento’s frontend system (or want to check all of the boxes).
Magento recommends having at least 1 year of Javascript experience. Honestly, I would recommend more than that. The Frontend Developer exam seems easier than the Javascript and the Frontend has a recommendation of 1.5 years. Either way, get in there, study and you’ll pass!
What you should know:
This certification is for those who are AT LEAST a Certified Professional Developer. You must have access to Magento Commerce and either experience customizing Commerce-only features OR time to learn the code for these features.
Magento recommends 2 years of experience. This is pretty close to what is necessary. Unfortunately, I have seen plenty of people with very little Magento experience (or plenty of Magento 1 experience) and NO Magento 2 certifications say they are going for this one. Sadly, they fail (I have seen only one group of developers, with no other certifications pass, and I question how they did it).
What you should know:
Here is a compilation of tips that I have seen work. The short story is that you will not pass unless you invest the needed time.
If you are a service provider (agency) and are looking to get your people certified, please understand that this will cost way more than just the $200-$300 for the certification. Your developers should spend at least 40 hours (probably more like 60-80) studying per certification. These are difficult tests, and be prepared that each person you send to take the test will likely fail it once, unless you give them the proper tools and time to pass.
We have prepared study guides for each certification. If budget is a concern (still, our study guides are significantly less than the cost of a certification), feel free to use Magento U’s study guides for each test—these are free.
Work through each section. Ideally, set aside dedicated time each morning before you begin your daily work. Slowly read it. Try to understand how this affects what you are doing.
For our study guides, click into the code links for each section. As needed, set up a test case, execute it, and step through the code for this section. Observe the variable’s values and how they are configured. What is the purpose of each class? What are the customization points? What is the big picture for how this area is built?
Take notes through this entire process. Our study guides are quite lengthy. Boil the study guide down to important notes. Make sure you grasp the big picture.
Above all, do not memorize code or ideas. Magento tests are entirely about problem-solving.
Again, you have options. We have a practice test for each Magento certification. I have participated in writing several Magento certifications and use this experience to write practice tests that closely mirror the style and content of Magento certifications. Note that the questions in our practice tests are NOT found on Magento certifications. However, they are written against the same objectives so the material covered will be similar.
Each of Magento U’s study guides has 2-4 sample questions. You can use these to understand whether or not you are ready to take the test.
Either way, do not memorize sample questions. You will fail if you do.
When you are ready, go purchase your certification voucher on Magento U’s website. You will receive a code in your email. This code is as good as cash, so keep it in safekeeping.
You can then go to the Magento U website and register to take the exam.
Good luck!
Joseph Maxwell
President / Senior Developer at SwiftOtter - @swiftotter_joe