Zend PHP Certification Program

New Zend Certified PHP Engineer in BelVG

Last week we received wonderful news – our developer Andrei Litvin passed Zend PHP Certification and became Zend Certified PHP Engineer. You’re probably wondering why our specialists need it; the answer is simple – BelVG works with Magento and PrestaShop that are written in PHP language. This is why we encourage our developers to get certified, and Andrei is the tenth specialist from our company who passed this exam.

Zend Certified PHP Engineer Certification is aimed at evaluation and recognition of PHP expertise of a developer. This certification is not only a great way to officially confirm your knowledge and skills, but also can serve as a ground for salary raise or great competitive advantage at a job interview.

How long did it take to get ready for the exam?
How much does Zend PHP Certification cost?
List of Zend PHP Certification Topics

We asked Andrei a couple of questions on the exam, and this is what we learned from him.

Why Zend PHP Certification?

It’s simple – I chose it because it’s the best. There are a number of alternatives to this exam, of course, but Zend is a company with a worldwide reputation, which makes it’s certificates recognized globally. Therefore, this exam is the best way to confirm your knowledge and get the most of your certification.

How long did it take to get ready for the exam?

About 3 months. The Certification questions are in public domain, so there was no trouble finding them. What comes to the answers, it was a bit harder. There is an official Study Guide by Zend, yet from time to time I took use of our corporate blog where some exam questions were explained in greater detail than in the study guide.

Having the list of questions and answers on your hands, it’s not really hard to prepare to exam by yourself, which I did. 3 months was enough to get ready in slow, but steady pace. I studied in the evening or at the weekend – it was no trouble.

How was the exam?

I took a computer test which lasted 90 minutes. Over this time I needed to answer 75 questions, so as you can see you need to answer quickly in order to answer all 75 and revise them. Most of the questions are multiple choice, with one or a couple of right answers, but some questions were closed, meaning that you have to fill in the answer yourself.

Was it hard?

Obviously, this was rather stressful experience, but in the end I passed the exam, so it was worth it!

What was the hardest topic for you in Zend PHP Certification? And the easiest one?

Well, you see, the hardest were the ones that I rarely come across at your work. For me it were XML extensions and SOAP – it took me more time to study than any other topic. Correspondingly, the easiest were the ones you work with on a daily basis – arrays, strings, exceptions. But I still had to at least refresh my memory on them.

Was this certification worth all the effort?

For me – yes. Even if my working life hasn’t changed fundamentally after I passed it, I feel more confident having physical proof of my knowledge and expertise. Plus I learned many interesting things, and though I don’t need them on a daily basis, who knows when it may come of use.

How much does Zend PHP Certification cost?

The cost of PHP certification is flexible and depends on developer’s current status. If you pass it for the first time, it will be €170 (including VAT). The person who has already passed Zend Certified Engineer and wants to upgrade this certificate is eligible for a discount.

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You can also purchase a special bundle which includes not only passing the exam, but also useful resources like training, study guide and pre-test prep. This will cost you $995.

List of Zend PHP Certification Topics

PHP Basics	Syntax Operators Variables Control Structures Language Constructs and Functions Namespaces Extensions Config Performance/bytecode caching
Functions	Arguments Variables References Returns Variable Scope Anonymous Functions, closures Type Declarations
Data Format & Types	XML Basics SimpleXML XML Extension Webservices Basics SOAP JSON DateTime DOMDocument
Web Features	Sessions Forms GET and POST data Cookies HTTP Headers HTTP Authentication HTTP Status Codes
Object Oriented Programming	Instantiation Modifiers/Inheritance Interfaces Return Types Autoload Reflection Type Hinting Class Constants Late Static Binding Magic (_*) Methods Instance Methods & Properties SPL Traits
Security	Configuration Session Security Cross-Site Scripting Cross-Site Request Forgeries SQL Injection Remote Code Injection Email Injection Filter Input Escape Output Encryption, Hashing algorithms File uploads PHP Configuration Password hashing API
I/O	Files Reading Writing File System Functions Streams Contexts
Strings & Patterns	Quoting Matching Extracting Searching Replacing Formatting PCRE NOWDOC Encodings
Databases & SQL	SQL Joins Prepared Statements Transactions PDO
Arrays	Associative Arrays Array Iteration Array Functions SPL, Objects as arrays Casting
Error Handling	Handling Exceptions Errors Throwables

We hope that the information from this article was useful to you and the example of Andrei Litvin – encouraging to your personal accomplishments. If you have any questions or comments, you’re welcome to leave them below!