Best Scrum developer certifications

Best Scrum developer certifications

As big tech companies including Twitter and Facebook lay off thousands of programmers, the job market becomes increasingly competitive.

As such, developers who seek gainful employment and top-tier compensation must find ways to set themselves apart from the crowd. One of the ways to do that is to complement your education and work experience with certifications that are highly in demand and respected in the industry you’re in.

For Scrum developers who wish to find work on cross-functional and self-managed Agile teams, here are the top 5 Scrum developer certifications:

1. Professional Scrum Developer Certification
2. Certified Cloud Developer
3. Certified Java Programmer
4. Certified DevOps Engineer
5. Certified Kubernetes Professional

A certified Scrum developer understands the importance of the five, core Scrum values.

Professional Scrum Developer Certification

Employers want developers that are immediately productive. They don’t want to waste time explaining software development processes and procedures to new hires.

When a Professional Scrum Developer Certification appears on a programmer’s resume, an employer knows that the application fully understands the following:

• the intricacies of iterative and incremental development;
• the importance of the product backlog;
• what to do during the daily Scrum; and
• how to participate on a cross-functional team.

Relatively few programmers are certified as Scrum developers. A developer this certification on their really stands out from the crowd.

Developer certifications in Scrum can be obtained by several organizations, but the premier designation comes from scrum.org.

Certified cloud developer

Modern software development happens in the cloud.

A productive software developer on a Scrum teams must know how to provision cloud-based resources, troubleshoot code in the cloud and overcome cloud-based security and firewall issues.

Employers know that the ability to develop and manage cloud-based applications is essential to modern-day businesses. A cloud developer certification on an applicant’s resume tells the hiring manager that you understand and can take full advantage of the benefits of cloud computing for a software development team.

All of the major cloud vendors offer a cloud developer certification. Cloud developer certifications from Google, Amazon and Oracle are all held in high regard.

Certified Java Programmer

Organizations expect a software developer on a Scrum team to know how to write code. Therefore, every Scrum developer should have a some type of a programming language certification on their resume.

For example, I like to see a Certified Java Programmer designation from Oracle on a resume, even if a company’s main language is Python or JavaScript.

A Java programmer certification proves a developer knows the following:

• programming fundamentals
• object-oriented concepts
• functional programming
• common design patterns

Industry-recognized certifications in other languages, such C# from Microsoft, also demonstrate to potential employers that you have a strong grasp of programming fundamentals.

Certified DevOps Engineer

Agile’s highest priority is the continuous delivery of software.

An Agile Scrum developer must understand the toolchain that enables continuous software delivery. DevOps certifications proves one’s knowledge of that toolchain.

The two most highly coveted DevOps certifications come from Amazon and Google. Both are considered ‘Professional’ designations, which means they go further in depth than introductory or associate certs.

Both the AWS and GCP certifications cover the same breadth of topics, including how to:

• implement and manage continuous software delivery systems;
• integrate with version control tools including Git and GitHub;
• create resources with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform;
• deploy monitoring, logging and metrics gathering systems; and
• manage Docker- and Kubernetes-based deployments at scale.

A Scrum developer certified by Amazon or Google as a DevOps Engineer brings a qualification to the table that few other job applicants possess.

The DevOps infinity loop shows an iterative dev process often embraced by Agile teams.

Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)

A Kubernetes certification is rare, but it’s definitely a plus.

A developer with strong knowledge of cloud-native computing, 12 factor app development and the limitations of Docker and Kubernetes will help streamline an organization’s microservices development and play a key role in its digital transformation efforts.

The CKAD designation is provided through the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, a highly respected open source organization in the cloud native computing space. Scrum developers with this certification have proof of competency in the following areas:

• work with OCI-compliant container images from Docker and Podman
• build cloud-native applications
• configure and secure container-based architectures

Scrum development teams that build cloud-native applications that are managed at runtime by Kubernetes will be well-served to have a Certified Kubernetes Application Developer.

Scrum developer certification benefits

In a competitive job market, it is important to stay ahead of your competition. With these five Scrum developer certifications on your resume, you will find your Agile development skills in great demand.