Plus One Magento 2 Professional Front End Developer

Read on and find out about Sergey Samets, a BelVG developer, who recently passed Magento 2 Front End Developer Certification.

Recently, Sergey Samets, our front end specialist, successfully passed Magento 2 Professional Front End Developer certification. We sincerely congratulate Sergey on his achievement and wish him further success! Here at BelVG, we fully embrace the importance of constantly improving the level of our knowledge and expertise and encourage our teammates to learn, progress and improve. Magento certification is a significant achievement for each Magento professional, and BelVG is proud to employ many Magento certified developers and see their numbers constantly growing.

From this article, you will learn what is Magento 2 Professional Front End Developer certification and why is it so valued among Magento developers. Also, you will find out the topics this exam covers and the questions it concerns. Finally, we will share Sergey’s honest insight on how he prepared for the exam and how he passed it.

Table of contents:

What is Magento 2 Professional Front End Developer Certification?
What is Magento 2 Front End Developer exam?
Magento 2 Front End Developer exam observations

What is Magento 2 Professional Front End Developer Certification?

Magento 2 Certified Professional Front End Developer is the exam aimed at validating the theoretical knowledge and practical skills, required for understanding Magento theming components and modifying Magento user interfaces. This exam can be taken by a Magento front end developer who possesses fundamental knowledge of Magento 2 and has a recommended one-and-a-half years of working experience with the platform. The certification is based on the Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce, versions 2.2 and later.

The passed Magento 2 Certified Professional Front End exam proves the developer can successfully create and customize Magento themes, layouts and templates, CSS and JavaScript, translations and other front end components. In addition to this, the certified developer is certain to implement design-related system configuration, using the Admin UI, and alter specific pages appearances.

Therefore, Magento Front End exam can be rightfully considered as the most appropriate certification to prove the specialist’s Magento competence, expertise and skill relevance. At BelVG, all specialists recognize the significance and value of Magento certificates for their work and career, and we are proud to have a long list of certified developers that only gets longer and longer each year.

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What is Magento 2 Front End Developer exam?

Magento 2 Certified Professional Front End Developer exam consists of 60 scenario-based multiple-choice questions and must be completed in 90 minutes or less. To get a pass, you must score 63% or higher; apart from this, you will also receive a separate score for each for the 10 exam topics, which presents a great opportunity to have a detailed assessment of your knowledge and determine which Magento topics you have a better or worse understanding. The exam can be taken in a Magento test center or online, in case your country does not have one or you prefer this format better.

This is the list Magento 2 Certified Professional Front End Developer exam topics and the questions each includes.

1. Create Themes

1.1 Describe folder structure for local and Composer-based themes
1.2 Describe the different folders of a theme
1.3 Describe the different files of a theme
1.4 Understand the usage of Magento areas: adminhtml/base/frontend

2. Magento Design Configuration System

2.1 Describe the relationship between themes
2.2 Configure the design system using the options found in the Admin UI under Content > Design > Configuration
2.3 Apply a temporary theme configuration to a store view using the options found in the Admin UI under Content > Design > Schedule
2.4 Understand the differences and similarities between Content > Design > Configuration and > Schedule to configure the design fallback

3. Layout XML in Themes

3.1 Demonstrate knowledge of all layout XML directives and their arguments
3.2 Describe page layouts and their inheritance
3.3 Demonstrate understanding of layout handles and corresponding files
3.4 Understand the differences between containers and blocks
3.5 Describe layout XML override technique
3.6 Understand layout merging
3.7 Understand processing order of layout handles and other directives
3.8 Set values on block instances using layout XML arguments
3.9 Customize a theme’s appearance with etc/view.xml

4. Create and Customize Template Files

4.1 Assign a customized template file using layout XML
4.2 Override a native template file with a customized template file, using the design fallback
4.3 Describe conventions used in template files
4.4 Render values of arguments set via layout XML
4.5 Demonstrate ability to escape content rendered and template files

5. Static Asset Deployment

5.1 Describe the static asset deployment process for different file types
5.2 Describe the effect of deploy modes on frontend development
5.3 Demonstrate your understanding of LESS > CSS deployment and its restrictions in development

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6. Customize and Create JavaScript

6.1 Include custom JavaScript on pages
6.2 Demonstrate understanding of using jQuery
6.3 Demonstrate understanding of requireJS
6.4 Configure JavaScript merging and minify in the Admin UI
6.5 UI component configuration
6.6 Understanding knockout framework
6.7 Understanding dependency between components
6.8 Understanding string templates

7. Use LESS/CSS to Customize the Magento Look and Feel

7.1 Explain core concepts of LESS
7.2 Explain Magento’s implementation of LESS (@magento_directive)
7.3 Describe the purpose of _module.less, _extend.less, _extends.less
7.4 Show configuration and usage of CSS merging and minification
7.5 Magento UI library usage

8. Customize the Look and Feel of Specific Magento Pages

8.1 Utilize generic page elements
8.2 Customizing product detail pages
8.3 Customizing category pages
8.4 Customizing CMS pages
8.5 Customizing widgets
8.6 Customizing CMS blocks
8.7 Customizing customer account pages
8.8 Customizing one-page checkout
8.9 Understand customization of transactional email templates

9. Implement Internationalization of Frontend Pages

9.1 Create and change translations
9.2 Translate theme strings for .phtml, emails, UI components, .js files

10. Magento Development Process

10.1 Determine ability to manage cache
10.2 Understand Magento console commands

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Magento 2 Front End Developer exam observations

Sergey Samets is a highly qualified frontend developer with over 5 years of Magento experience. He has been a part of our team for a while and has always shown excellent results and commitment to meet new challenges and learn from them. Last month, he successfully passed Magento 2 Professional Front End Developer Certification and confirmed his expertise.

We had a short interview with Sergey, asking to share his impressions about the exam and the process of preparation for it.

First of all, how did you study for the exam?

Magento has a free pdf study guide with the exam topics questions, which can be downloaded from their website, but provides no answers to the exam questions. This means, you either search the Internet for bits and pieces of the information you need, which is often unverified or outdated, or purchase a paid study guide, written by third-party Magento developers. But in BelVG, we chose a third path – we explored the questions on our own and gave our comprehensive answers in the form of articles, published on our corporate blog. Yes, it was significantly harder than studying the pre-made materials, but much more effective in terms of learning and understanding. I can say that it is partially because of researching certain questions on my own that I was able to pass the exam successfully.

Most of the Magento 2 Front End Certification articles are available on BelVG blog, and soon we will release a one-piece tutorial in a simple-to-read wiki format. It will be available for free on our website and, I sincerely hope, will come of great use to hundreds of Magento developers getting ready to pass the exam.

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

Although there was hardly any new information for me at the exam guide, I still needed to refresh all the required information. I started to do it 4 months prior to the scheduled exam date and got ready just in time.

How did you choose to pass the exam?

I passed it online. Magento has no exam centers in our country, so taking the exam online is the best way out.

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Were there any questions the Magento exam guide did not feature?

I would not say that the contents of the guide and the exam itself did not match completely. There was a fair share of questions that only those who have hands-on Magento expertise will answer. But, with my experience, it was no problem for me. This means that even if you learn the exam answers by heart, this will not secure your high score – you should have worked with Magento for some time, the more the better.

Do you plan to pass another Magento certification?

No, I do not plan to stop on what I already achieved. Soon, I will start getting ready to take Magento 2 Certified Professional JavaScript Developer Certification. Fortunately, we have a great body of knowledge on JavaScript exam, and I can always ask for advice my colleagues who have already passed this certification.

We kindly thank Sergey for sharing his experience and wish him good luck with future Magento exams!

Sergey is a frontend specialist on the BelVG Magento development team. Looking for assistance with your Magento webstore? Turn to BelVG.

Wrapping it up

We hope we answered all the questions you might have possibly had about the Magento 2 Certified Professional Front End Developer exam in this article. We also expect that the personal insights of BelVG developer who passed it will encourage you to take the examination yourself. Stay tuned for the Magento 2 Front End Developer tutorial release, and in case you have a question or a comment, feel free to leave them down below.