I was one of the beta testers for Bubble's new Bubble Developer Certification. Here is my experience (sorry no spoilers!)

I was privileged to be invited by Bubble to beta-test their new certification in June 2023 as part of the early access group.

A little about me

Over the last three years, I’ve:

• Taught Bubble as an official Bubble Bootcamp instructor,
• Led the Bubble Core component of the Bubble Immerse pre-accelerator,
• Founded and managed MomentumGroup.tech, a Bubble agency delivering over $2.5mil AUD of work
• Developed a 32hrs complete, end-to-end Bubble Developer intensive training course for Momentum Academy

Therefore I was reasonably confident I would pass this test with flying colors, and have valuable feedback for Bubble given my experience as a teacher and developer/product manager.

I was fortunate to meet (the!) Jeremy Alexander - who singlehandedly created Bubble’s current Academy offering over the last 3 years before the team expanded. We met several times before the test, and I was able to give feedback on the test topics and what would be regarded as useful for agencies or companies hiring Bubble devs.

Here’s a little about my experience.

Observation 1: The test was hard

• It took me about 2hrs to complete the test. The test allows 4.5 hours to complete 90 questions.
• Some questions were able to be answered in 15 seconds, but most took 1-2 minutes for me to answer.
• The questions were mostly multiple choice, but most of the MCQ options sounded credible, contributing to the difficulty level of the test (unlike “multiple guess” tests where two options are ridiculously wrong, one is possible and one is more obvious).
• I felt reasonably certain that most of my answers were right, but for some questions, I wasn’t 100% sure I had got the gist of the question.
• The pass mark is 70 out of 90.
• I passed, achieving 80/90 which is 88%.
• From my responses, I disagreed with the marking of 5 questions - I thought the wording could be improved for clarity, and gave that feedback.
• I knew I wasn’t sure about the other 5 questions and accepted I just got them wrong. Had I spent more time building proof of concepts, I may have gotten them correctly.
• I imagine the test would be somewhat challenging for people who are not strong in English, as the questions were in some cases quite nuanced, as is being a developer in the real world.
• Skilljar provides an online certification, valid for 12 months, which is easily added to your LinkedIn profile (Certificate for Bubble Developer Certification (Early Access) ).

Observation 2: The test focused on Bubble core skills, not peripheral skills

In Momentum Academy, partly inspired by the broader nature of Bubble Immerse and being a dev in the real world, we teach:

1. Core Bubble skills
2. Product Management,
3. Design,
4. Soft/people skills.

In the Bubble Developer Certification, the ONLY thing that matters is your intimate knowledge of Bubble, gained from experience.

You must have had significant hands-on experience.

You must have gone through many points of frustration, and have learned how to resolve these issues yourself.

You must have experience with high-complexity web applications on Bubble.

Observation 3: The test is fair

• The test assesses your knowledge of the Bubble manual and how to access the manual for specific answers. Most questions could be answered by knowing your way around the manual and how to apply what you find there in an app.
• The test assesses your ability to implement core Bubble functionality (Design, Workflows, Database, Styles, API Connector, Backend Workflows, Settings, Logs, and Scheduled tasks).
• The test modeling data modeling skills, the ability to assess a scenario, and confidently configure a data structure and privacy rules to achieve the desired outcome (e.g. user roles, database segmentation by accounts).
• The test assesses the ability to connect to external APIs, and how to allow other apps to connect to your app’s API.
• The test assesses your reasoning within the context of hands-on Bubble development.
• For the features of Bubble I don’t use every day or haven’t done before in an app, I was able to create a quick proof of concept app, hit the manual, and test out options to land on the correct answer. This being said, I couldn’t have done this at speed without my existing confidence working within Bubble.

Observation 4: The test is a useful tool for the recruitment of Bubble devs, and therefore a great thing to have on your resume/CV

Regardless of anything I’ve said above, I believe the test to be a really good reflection of the skills of a Bubble developer.

Once the test has been officially launched, all professional Bubble developers should go through the test and add the certification to their resume/CV and LinkedIn profile. I will certainly be using this as one criterion for recruiting high-performing devs in the future.

Conclusion

The Bubble Developer certification is a valuable contribution to the Bubble ecosystem and will help experienced developers stand out and gain immediate credibility with potential employers.

For more information on learning Bubble and preparing for the certification, check out Momentum Academy’s end-to-end Bubble certification course, to be released in Q4 of 2023.

Written By Will Ericksson

Managing Director of MomentumGroup.tech, Founder of Momentum Academy, and former Bubble Bootcamp/Bubble Immerse Instructor created over 40+ apps with Bubble.io.