Building a career with Atlassian knowledge

[#1]

As a long time fan of Atlassian products, a role working for an Atlassian solution partner was a fantastic fit for me and my career. In any new role a learning curve is expected - but nothing prepared me for the number of courses I have completed within my first year at TechTime all while being the customer account manager, delivery lead, and scrum master.

Read on if you are interested in learning more about working for an Atlassian solution partner (and marketplace vendor, reseller, and training partner).

Accreditation learning paths

There are three program levels to recognise each Partner’s individual depth of expertise and experience with Atlassian products - Silver, Gold, and Platinum. One of the criteria to move up a level is based on the number of accredited individuals in the Partner's organisation. Accreditation is the first type of study I did in the last year.

• Atlassian Operations Professional provides an overview and understanding of Atlassian project pricing and packaging, and creating clean quotes and orders within Atlassian’s ordering systems. This takes around 3 hours to complete.
• Atlassian Sales Professional is where everyone who needs accreditation learns about selling Atlassian products. Each Atlassian product is covered with information about their appeal and suitability to different personas and comparisons with tools often considered alongside the Atlassian range. This is more in-depth than the Operations Professional course and takes an additional 12 hours to complete. 
• Atlassian Technical Sales Professional is not for the faint-hearted. Completing this course is a significant achievement as not only is there another 10 and a half hours of online course to watch (and interact with), the course is not considered complete until you also have earned two certifications through Atlassian University.
• Atlassian Marketing Professional is a short introduction to the marketing portal provided by Atlassian to Partners - pre-filled with a range of campaigns that can be used as-is or customised.

Every six months your accreditation is reviewed. Often no action is needed for your accreditation to renew, however you may need to complete any new or updated modules that have been added since the last review and you need to maintain at least two certifications for the Atlassian Technical Sales Professional to renew. 

Atlassian University certifications

While accreditation is largely only known about by Atlassian and their solution partners, certifications are widely recognised. These courses allow you to learn more so your team and organisation can get more out of their Atlassian products, can help you advance in or find your career path, and allows you to stand out as a validated Atlassian product expert. There are six certifications available at the time this article was written:

• Atlassian Certified in Jira Project Administration
• Atlassian Certified in Agile Development with Jira Software
• Atlassian Certified Jira Administrator
• Atlassian Certified Jira Service Desk Administrator
• Atlassian Certified Confluence Administrator

• Atlassian Certified System Administrator

Completing one of these certifications and passing the 3-hour multiple-choice proctored exam entitles you to call yourself an Atlassian Certified Professional. Like many professional qualifications the learning does not end there. At least once every 18 months you need to extend the validity of your certification by earning an Atlassian Certified Badge, an Atlassian Skills Badge, or a third-party Agile or Scrum Certification. Some badges can extend more than one certification if you plan well. 

I completed the accreditation learning paths in 6 months including Atlassian Certified in Jira Project Administration and Atlassian Certified in Agile Development with Jira Software. For some people this may have been enough study for a while but for me the study continued.

Atlassian training courses

A perk of working for an Atlassian solution partner is getting access to all of the training courses Atlassian offers. Planning with Portfolio for Jira, for example, was a helpful way to learn about a tool used by customers which I had not had worked with in previous roles. In October 2018, most of our organisation completed Getting Started with Jira Software Server and Getting More from Jira Software Server with the help of our own in-house Atlassian Authorised Instructor, Irina Mosina. 

Earlier this year, Atlassian released self-paced, short, in-product tutorials available in Jira though a Marketplace app 'Training for Jira' for Cloud and Server. 

Atlassian training courses are available in a range of formats for topics covering Jira and Confluence. Whether you want on-demand self paced training over 30 days, public or team live online training, or in-person public or team training there is a course option for you. Atlassian even helps simplify the procurement process and provides volume discounts by offering training credits for purchase.

These courses lead to my next challenge - becoming an Atlassian Authorised Instructor so I could provide in-person training of the Atlassian training courses. Becoming an instructor involves more training (including how to navigate around the three applications used to purchase and run the courses) and providing a recording of myself presenting the first few slides of one of the courses. Atlassian only authorises instructors and training partners for 6 months at a time. After every course taught, all students are sent a survey which include quality control questions and are used by Atlassian to decide whether they will renew the authorisation for each instructor and training partner.

In the last year I have willingly invested a lot of effort and time into the Atlassian ecosystem with the generous support of TechTime. My learning will continue in at Atlassian Summit 2019 where I sit my exam to become an Atlassian Certified Confluence Administrator, attend Partner Day, and immerse myself in the Summit experience as a representative of our Marketplace app brand #everykeystokematters at booth 302, checking out other booths in the expo hall, and attending sessions.

[Jodi LeBlanc]

Fantastic post @Kat Warner ! So many possibilities and paths you outlined, I wish you all the best on your Atlassian Certified Confluence Administrator next month! Wish I was attending the Summit to meet you in-person.

[Vijaya Bhaskar V]

@Kat Warner  - Really its nice article. As you are partner, hope you might aware of my queries. Can you please help me on below queries.

During initial stage i have to sign up as a partner then which accreditation have to finish first ?

Atlassian Operations Professional or Atlassian Sales Professional ?

Assume that we are having the technical team those who are expert in Atlassian product configuration and supporting. 

Those technical users should have to finish those Operations & Sales Professional course or they can complete the course directly Atlassian Technical Sales Professional ?

In Partner Brouchure , I can see some Program Requirements for Atlassian Sales .

For Gold - 50000 $ & Platinum - 2,50,000 $ 

Shall we nee to sell the product to customers to achieve that Gold or Platinum membership 

or  

We need to have the product for that worth as mentioned above.

Thanks in Advance !!!

[Kat Warner]

@Vijaya Bhaskar V - for accreditation your team works through the courses in the order of Operations, Sales, then Technical Sales. The good news is that Operations is a sub-set of the requirements for Sales, and Sales is a sub-set of the requirements for Technical Sales.

Contact the Atlassian team for your questions about sales here.

[Tim S]

Thank you for the article. I'm very new to Atlassian. I'm self-employed but have been looking for new work opportunities, and a family friend recently offered to introduce me to Jira, etc. She created a company login so that I can access the Enablement Academy, but didn't give me any guidance on where I should proceed from there.

From your article (and the course work) it's becoming evident that Atlassian Technical Sales Professional training probably wasn't the ideal choice for starting out. I'm actually more interested in learning how to implement the software than learning how to sell it, but all of the available Learning Paths focus exclusively on sales. I am at least getting a decent overview of the product suite and am learning the capabilities of the different software products and their potential applicability to different businesses.

I'll be checking out the training courses you linked above before continuing the Academy learning paths. If I can learn how to implement Atlassian products for customers then I will feel more comfortable focusing on how to sell the products to new customers.

[Nathaniel Simpson]

Thank you @Kat Warner for another fantastic article.

Apart from earning two certifications through Atlassian University completing the Accreditation learning paths (i.e. & completing the Atlassian Operations Professional, Atlassian Sales Professional, Atlassian Technical Sales Professional, Atlassian Marketing Professional) are you aware of any other requirements for becoming a Silver Atlassian solution partner?

How long did it take for your application to process?

Kind Regards, Nat

[Kat Warner]

Being a Silver Atlassian Solution Partner is an organisational level designation, not an individual one.

You can read about the details here.

[Patricia Francezi]

@Kat Warner 

Can the Individual Certified different from Atlassian Technical Sales
Professional Accredations?

Can be the same person (Individual Certified) Accredited in all other programa accreditation?

(this is not informed in Join the program page, nor the brochure.

My question is focused in silver layer program

[Kat Warner]

Prior to a change in January this year you needed to have 2 Atlassian Certifications and have completed the course videos to meet the Atlassian Technical Sales Professional accreditation requirements. 

These have now been separated so organisation's can choose if the same or different individuals watch all the course videos and pass 2 exams.