As Magento continues to dominate the eCommerce platform scene now that the company has been acquired by Adobe. Magento 2 certificates will be on every developer’s and solution specialists’ checklist for the years to come.
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AN OVERVIEW OF THE MAGENTO 2 CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPER EXAM
The Magento 2 Certified Professional Developer exam, a primarily scenario-based exam, is designed to validate the skills and knowledge needed to customize Magento 2 in the areas of: UI modifications, database changes, admin modifications, checkout process customizations, order management integrations, customizations, catalog structure and functionality changes. This exam is for a Magento 2 developer who has a deep understanding of Magento 2 development concepts and experience (recommend 1.5 years) in implementing and customizing Magento 2.
Signing up for the exam costs US$260. A score of at least 64% is required to pass the exam.
THE EXAM FORMAT
- 60 Multiple Choice questions.
- 90 minutes to complete the exam.
- No hard copy or online materials may be referenced during the exam.
- Based on Magento Open Source (2.2) and Magento Commerce (2.2), but applicable to those using any version of Magento 2.
PREPARING FOR THE EXAM
To give the best tips for preparing for the exam, we interviewed Duc (Eric) Quach, one of our senior developers at Magenest who has recently just passed the exam. We managed to catch up with him in the early morning while he was grabbing a cup of coffee.
Hi Eric, how are you?
I’m doing great. Thank you.
So we know you’ve just received your Magento 2 Professional Developer and we want to know how you’ve managed to pass the exam.
Yes.
So first, what can you tell us about the exam?
Most of the questions in the exam are about hands-on experience. You need to have at least 1-1.5 years of working with Magento to have a good understanding of the platform. The questions are about your deep understanding of Magento and your ability to customize it according to best practices.
Which part of the exam do you think was easy for you?
For me, the easiest part is the questions about Magento basics, for example: which files are responsible for a function, how can you use these files to achieve functionality, for example: “which file do you use to create a new shipping carrier, a new payment method, etc.”. It’s really fundamental and I don’t think any developer will have any difficulty with it.
What about the hard part? and would you think that is what people should focus on?
The harder part is, of course, the rest of the exam. The questions are in my opinion at a similar level of difficulty, there were no questions that I found to be exceptionally hard to answer. Each section is different and I think it comes down to just whether you’ve covered it yet. I’ve managed to go over a little bit of everything. But I should have spent more time looking into best practices because I don’t think some of my choices for those questions were good.
Any other pieces of advice you want to give to developers who are going to take the exam?
Sure, so, the exam – it’s hard and it’s fast, the questions can be long and hard to understand, so be prepared. Also, dig deep into the core of Magento, and understand each step of the workflows because the questions are about them.
Practice customizing Magento whenever you can. Don’t just work without thinking, always try to find the best practices for a solution. I don’t really study too much for the exam but I improve my Magento knowledge by working with Magento every day, each issue can be a study case. Reading Magento developer documents is also very helpful, you should try signing up for Magento’s training courses like the Fundamental Course.
And yeah, I don’t think you should worry too much about the exam, if you’re a good developer, you can pass the exam. But that doesn’t mean failing the exam would make you a bad developer.
Thank you, Eric, have a good day!
You, too.
