Red Hat's certification program provides validation of IT professionals' skills and knowledge using our subscription products. Red Hat's certifications carry credibility in the market because they are all earned by taking one or more hands-on, practical exams that last multiple hours. Like most programs offered by technology vendors, our most familiar certifications are those for system administrators.
What is less known is that Red Hat offers certifications for developers too!
Red Hat's product portfolio goes beyond infrastructure and includes developer tools like JBoss Fuse, BRMS (Business Rules Management System), Data Virtualization, and Data Grid. These are tools used by developers to build and integrate applications more efficiently and effectively. We focus on developers when it comes to the certifications we offer in support of these products. Let's not forget Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, for which we offer certifications for both developers and system administrators.
Providing a meaningful certification program for developers has posed some unique challenges, especially given the bar we set over the years with sys admin certifications. As with our sys admin exams, every developer exam is completely performance-based -- i.e., examinees must perform real-world tasks using the technologies on which they are being tested. This approach becomes tricky when you start thinking about enterprise application development.
While business stakeholders might wish otherwise, application development is not started and completed in four hours, which is the length of our developer exams. How do you test in four hours for skills used at work that might take days, weeks, or even longer? Fortunately, the real world provides an answer. Most of the time developers work with applications that already exist. Their work consists of adding new features, extending or improving functionality, or sometimes just making the thing work under new or previously unanticipated use cases.
And that's basically how Red Hat's developer exams function. Examinees are presented with an existing project to modify, extend, and improve according to a set of objective criteria. We evaluate whether these criteria are met much as we would if we were testing an application before pushing to production. Consequently, someone who has earned one of our developer certifications has performed real-world tasks unassisted in a controlled environment. That's powerful validation.
Whether you are relatively new to the developer job market, or a seasoned pro trying to make the case for bringing in a new Red Hat technology, our certifications can help you make the case that you're skilled, proven, and ready.
Last updated: June 2, 2023