We got it: The Drupal 8 Developer Certificate

The CMS (Content Management System) Drupal is an open source software that is further developed very frequently. As the update from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 brought lots of changes, my colleagues Jose, Eduardo and I participated in the Acquia exam to get the new Drupal 8 certificate. We are proud to announce that we were the first three developers to receive the official certificate “Acquia Certified Developer - Drupal 8” in Germany and Spain. And we are still the only ones in Spain with a certificate right now. For everyone who is thinking about doing the certification, I would like to share some thoughts about it.

I recommend anyone who wants to take the exam, to go to one of the official Testing Centers. There are many of them worldwide, unfortunately none in my hometown Seville, so I had to do the online exam. For this you need a Windows or iOS computer. There is a chat option on the Kryterion online support page, where you get help in case there are any difficulties with launching the online exam. In my case, I had to reschedule the exam due to the technical problems, but afterwards everything was fixed by the Kryterion support service.

To avoid possible problems as much as you can, download the document “Prepare Your Exam” and follow the instructions. It’s important to know that you need administrator rights and that the ports 80 and 443 have to be open. Acquia recommends to use an external camera for the test, but I think the integrated one should work just fine and it’s easier to configure.

The exam takes about 90 minutes and contains 60 questions about Drupal 8. Check out the Acquia website for further details about the format and content of the test. What’s important: You do not simply pass the test just because you paid money for it. You really have to proof your experience in working with Drupal 8. The questions are not too tricky for those, who use Drupal on a regular basis.

At the time that I was able to start the exam, I was really nervous – not the best state to take a test. Luckily there is plenty of time to calm yourself down, answer the questions and review them. Some of the questions involve code and are a little bit longer, but normally they are really concise.

To prepare the exam the most important thing is to develop constantly during some months and trying to face as many different scenarios as possible. Other than that, I found the d8cards.com website really useful and interesting, plus it has even more information than is needed for the exam. Reading the documentation about CMI at Drupal.org is also always a good thing to do!

During the exam you can mark the questions to be reviewed later. When you answer the last question you will see a page with all your answers and the questions you have marked to review. And when you finally submit the exam, you will almost automatically receive the results. You need 65 percent correct answers to pass the exam. I’m proud to report that I got a 90 percent. This is not bad considering that a 25 percent of the test is about frontend and I’m usually a backend-developer.

If you pass the exam, you will receive an email with a badge and a certificate that can be printed out. Along with that you see your scores by sections: fundamentals, site building, frontend and backend. Sadly you don’t get to know which questions you failed.

In the end your name will appear at the Acquia Certification Registry. I hope my report about the certification process is useful to you and if you decide to take the exam: Good luck! :-)