My Journey to be Atlassian Certified Expert

[#1]

Hello, friends of the community,

Sometimes, dreams come true. My name is Gal Fatal, and for the past five years, I enjoyed being an Atlassian community leader in Tel-Aviv, Israel. I would love to share my journey of becoming an Atlassian certified expert with you and offer tips and inspiration to anyone interested in this path. So let's get started! :)

I began managing Jira and Confluence admins at HP 8 years ago and have since led teams working with Atlassian tools after migrating from various other tools.

My passion for Atlassian tools transformed my career. I transitioned from a traditional DevOps Engineer and Manager to leading an Atlassian Administrators team specializing in ALM solutions.

I joined the Atlassian community five years ago. Since then, I have created 29 events, some of which had over 100 attendees. I have attended Atlassian summits in Barcelona and Atlassian Teams events in Las Vegas. Additionally, I had the honor of speaking at the Atlassian 2019 Summit.

Currently, I work as a freelance consultant, assisting various companies with Atlassian tools.

I took my first Jira certification exam six years ago when only the Server version was available. Later, when I heard about the Atlassian expert plan, it was a big challenge. As Atlassian is pushing everyone toward the cloud and announcing the end of life for the server version, I decided to shift to the cloud, learn about it, and go for the expert plan.

My thought went to:

• Learning for exams is the best way to understand Atlassian tools and processes.
• I want to know everything possible about Atlassian cloud tools.
• I want to be certified in multiple tools (JSM and Confluence).
• I love challenges.
• As a community leader, I want all the necessary knowledge to share and maintain my expertise.
• I am betting on Atlassian for my career long-term, and getting Atlassian certified expert will boost my career.

Atlassian offers two paths to becoming an expert. Both require passing four certification exams.

Path A - requires one Jira administrator certification, Cloud or Data Center.

Path B - focuses on Jira administrator and requires both Jira cloud and Jira Data Center certifications.

The technical information provided at Atlassian Certified Expert is explained very clearly and thoroughly.

I chose path A because it allows me to take all exams on the Atlassian cloud platform, which was my focus.

I needed to choose one from the following:

• ACP-JA Atlassian Certified Jira Administrator for Data Center and Server
• ACP-JCA Atlassian Certified Jira Administrator for Cloud

That was easy, as I wanted to focus on the Atlassian cloud and I chose 

ACP-JCA Atlassian Certified Jira Administrator for Cloud

Next, I had to choose one for the following:

• ACP-MJCP Atlassian Certified in Managing Jira Projects for Cloud
• ACP-MJDP Atlassian Certified in Managing Jira Projects for Data Center
• AC-JPA Atlassian Certified Jira Project Administrator for Data Center and Server**

The same choice here: I chose 

ACP-MJCP Atlassian Certified in Managing Jira Projects for Cloud

Next, I had to choose two of the following:

• ACP-OA Atlassian Certified Organization Admin
• EITHER: ACP-JSD Atlassian Certified Jira Service Desk Administrator* OR ACP-MJSP Atlassian Certified Jira Service Project Manager for Cloud
• EITHER: ACP-CA Atlassian Certified Confluence Administrator for Data Center and Server* OR APB-CSA Confluence Space Administration Pro Skills Badge
• ACP-SA Atlassian Certified System Administrator*

I wanted to have vast knowledge of Atlassian cloud tools, so I Chose

ACP-MJSP Atlassian Certified Jira Service Project Manager for Cloud
APB-CSA Confluence Space Administration Pro Skills Badge

Now, when the list of the exams were clear, I needed to choose the right order.

I recommend to start with ACP-MJCP Atlassian Certified in Managing Jira Projects for Cloud, This exam focuses on Jira project management and is relatively easy. It provides a step-by-step course that will enable you to pass even if you have little experience with Jira cloud. This exam covers some of the knowledge required for the next exam, so I recommend taking it as your first exam.

The next recommended exam is the ACP-JCA Atlassian Certified Jira Administrator for Cloud

This exam requires more time to invest in learning, it contains more content than the previous exam.

After I passed it, I published the following article: How I passed ACP-120 Jira Admin for cloud certification exam  which gives essential tips for getting ready for this challenging exam. I highly recommend reviewing this article as it contains valuable tips that can benefit you in all types of exams.

For my next exam, I decided to do the APB-CSA Confluence Space Administration Pro Skills Badge. Although I was already certified in the server-based version of Confluence, I realized that the cloud-based version was significantly different and required me to learn new skills in order to bridge the gap.

For the next and last exam, I picked the ACP-MJSP Atlassian Certified Jira Service Project Manager for Cloud. I was motivated to learn JSM after seeing some demos. I understood this tool would be vast, and I must have the knowledge as an expert.I recommend keeping this exam the last one as it contains some of the Jira admin content.

A few days after I passed the last exam, I got the Atlassian Certified Expert badge, and honestly, it was an exciting moment.

Sometimes, dreams come true. (but you need to work for that!)

Today, I am a freelance, giving consulting in Jira/Confluence/JSM. The journey to the Atlassian Certified Expert boosted my career and gave me the knowledge to succeed.

Feel free to contact me if you need motivation or more tips.

Cheers

Gal Fatal

[Dave Mathijs]

Congratulations on this achievement and for sharing your journey @Gal Fatal!

[YY Brother]

Congrats~ @Gal Fatal 

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Yes! Thanks for sharing your journey with the community, @Gal Fatal 👍

[Kay]

This is really inspiring especially for me who wants to become an Atlassian Certified Expert.

[Carlos Garcia Navarro]

Congratulations, and thanks for sharing your story, @Gal Fatal !

[Aslan Bennington-Barr]

How long after the last exam did you receive the Atlassian Certified Expert credential? Thanks :)

[Hana Kučerová]

Hi @Gal Fatal , congratulations!

There are two links to MJSP certification in your article - the first one probably should be replaced with MJCP certification.

[Gal Fatal]

Thank you @Hana Kučerová for catching this and letting me know.

That was my mistake, I fixed it.

[Gert-Jan van der Pijl]

Cool, I achieved the same certs but in different order 
Wish I had your outline when I started. Congrats. 

[Andrew Belyaev]

Hey everyone, any idea if the Certified Expert badge is not available any more? 

It's gone along with its mentions on the exams pages... 

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

It's gone, @Andrew Belyaev     Check out this article.

[Joanna Thurmann]

Thank you @Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_  for jumping in to answer.

Yes,  @Andrew Belyaev This post Evolving the Atlassian Certification Program explains that ACE was recently retired. Please also see: Retiring Credentials & Certifications.

However, we still offer 6 Professional Certifications that you can earn, as well as 2 Associate Certifications (plus new ones on the way!) that will roll into our next iteration of the expert designation.

Thank you for your interest and patience as we evolve the program.

[Andrew Belyaev]

Thank you for your help!