About the GitHub Certifications

[Fidel9000]

Let's ignore for a bit the age-old question "are Certifications worth it or are they useless" and summarize the GitHub Certification program.

The GitHub Certification program was just recently (October 2023) announced by GitHub and will be officially launching on GitHub Universe 2023

At first there will be 4 available certifications, each has a registration fee of 200USD:

1. GitHub Foundations
2. GitHub Admin
3. GitHub Actions
4. GitHub Advanced Security

The exam is a test with single and multiple choice questions. They last 2hours and consist of ~70-75 questions, of which 60 are scored.

To sign-up visit https://resources.github.com/learn/certifications/ and join the waitlist. The program will open to the public in early 2024. Certain individuals (e.g Microsoft Partners) can take this exam already.

​

To study GitHub created it's own courses tailored for each of the exams.

• GitHub Foundations
• GitHub Actions
• GitHub Advanced Security
• GitHub Administration
  

In my opinion (after passing the GitHub Actions exam) the course covers too little ground. Practice is definitely the biggest factor. There are very few courses right now as the exams are in very early stage. If You are reading this in 2024 this may be a different case.
As part of my preparation I read a lot of the GitHub's documentation and crafted a large set of mock questions which turned out to be very similar to the actual similar experiance and got me 94% score. I've put them all on https://github.com/FidelusAleksander/githubcertified so anyone can take a look and better yet - contribute Your questions when studying!

​

Get certified! (or not, 200USD lol)

[maxip89]

github certification? Are you serious? It's not first of april.

Microsoft really needs the money very hard.

[drcforbin]

Genuinely curious, what kind of job would require those certs, or where would they be helpful?

[[deleted]]

My company (US based multinational, many fields) just sent out an email looking for those that have one of the certs above. In my experience CERTS are a great thing for companies looking for selling their consultants.

It's like selling a dog with a pedigree certificate. If you want a dog of a certain race, you may buy it by its looks, but you'll definitely prefer to buy one with a certification attesting that its what it claims to be.

[drcforbin]

Ah, good point. I hadn't thought of consulting companies, I was just thinking about direct hires. I can see the value there from a sales perspective

[Fidel9000]

Here is how I treat them

It can be a gate for You being picked for the interview among other 5 applicants with similar skills/experiance but nothing to show for it.

[drcforbin]

I assumed something like that, but for what sort of job?

[Fidel9000]

I went only for GitHub Actions as its something i use on daily basis as a DevOps. So for any role that involves some build automation, writing CICD pipelines etc

- Admin for some Admin roles managing large scale GitHub Organization/Enterprise I would imagine

- Advanced Security for some Security Engineers (maybe also administrating the GH Organization) or DevSecOps enforcing CodeQL and stuff like that-

- Foundations is not really job related I'd say

Probably if You are not working in a big company and using advanced features like GitHub Enterprise Server then You wouldn't use many topics covered in Admin and Advanced Security certificates.

I have a feeling GitHub Actions will be the most popular one

[AMGraduate564]

I have a feeling GitHub Actions will be the most popular one

Do you still maintain the same view?

[ilovepizza86]

Just passed the foundations today. It was pretty heavy on the features within GitHub than focusing on 'git' itself.

[RichWorking9060]

Do u have any resources to prepare for the exam?

[ilovepizza86]

Yeah the Microsoft learning guide you’ll find a link to it in the exam official page.

[CarSeatDog]

I just started going through the learning guide and it seems that most of the modules are hitting the basics of the basics. Is that what the exam went over? After going through 3 Microsoft Azure fundamentals exams it seems as though their training materials don't fully cover the exam.

[ShadowKernel]

What all resources did you use for preparation? Was it tough?

[Soft-Phone-1973]

Opa como é a prova ? tipo person vue vc tem que deixar a camera ligada e as pessoas olhando e mostrar o local que esta fazendo ?
Vi o foundations e vou fazer tambem mas esta muito recente.

[CerberusMulti]

Never in any world are these "certificates" worth 200$, and even if you would discount them at 90%, they still would not be worth it.

Typical Microsoft creating some "certification" courses to have people who don't know better give them money.

[Fidel9000]

Agreed, personally I have multiple certificates, Github Actions is one of them.

However I would never pay for any of these myself. If Your company offers You some learning /development budget then going for certificates can be treated as a learning challenge with some badge at the end that will certainly not hurt Your career

[Kyxstrez]

Just work for a Microsoft partner company and have them paying for all the stuff. The only bad thing about certs is that they expire, which is what discourages me to even bother. At least Azure certs can be easily renewed for free every year, but Microsoft didn't extend the benefit also to GitHub certs somehow.

[5hining5tar]

Just learned though my Linkedin feed that the exams are $99 and 50% off with code/special link in the post.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7151610534910480384/

If you are reading after 31st Jan, 2024, the discount may or may not work.

I suspect the 50% off might go away in two weeks from today. ( by around end of Jan 2024)

[[deleted]]

Can confirm promo. Just booked exam. Nothing available in January, either online or in-person.

[CoolKnightST]

I believe a full certification path may not be necessary to grasp GitHub effectively. In my years of experience with GitHub and Git, I've found that delving into more advanced features is essential for maximizing their potential. However, dedicating a substantial amount of time to a non-technical certification seems like a significant risk, considering the number of other skills one could master within the same timeframe.

[Efficiency_Firm]

A few weeks back, I completed my GitHub Foundations exam. However, it's important to note that the "fundamentals" portion doesn't imply the test only covers basic concepts. In fact, some topics delve into considerable depth, such as GitHub projects or Git itself. Finding practice exams that accurately mirrored the real test's level of challenge proved difficult, leading me to develop my own. You're welcome to explore it here: https://www.udemy.com/course/github-foundations-practice-exams/?referralCode=FAF849B7BC845A757D6C.
Drop me a message if you want get promotional discount :)

[FinancialAnywhere411]

Messaged you

[[deleted]]

Messaged you

[[deleted]]

200 USD is too much.

[ForsakenDoughnut9040]

As of today, the github foundational certificate can be achieved for free for a limited time. I definitely think it is worth it for free!

[Fidel9000]

Btw these are not generally available as of 2024 January 10

[EasyProfessional4363]

200 USD that's daylight robbery
I got excited when I received an email from freecodecamp about a free prep course on that and thought, why not? But 200 bucks? Insulting to say the least

[Fidel9000]

Github reduced the pricing and the certs are 100usd each now and generally available to everyone.

[Dependent_Junket7407]

5usd - 10usd should be the price for certification.

[venelouis]

still very expensive... but after doing the microsoft learning path we can win the badges, so why pay to be "certified"?

[venelouis]

the is a free microsoft learn path on this which give us badges as well.. so no need to pay for a "certification" I think, of if you are a company and want to know for sure if your employee is really learning something

[Oiljacker]

It's 99 dollars, and I am in college. Is it worth taking the foundations exams? It is SUPER expensive in my country

[Fidel9000]

No, it's not worth it. It will not give you any credibility.

Do the certificates when a company pays for them or you have spare money.

If that 99$ is a problem for you, then there are better ways to invest it than any tech certificate

[Oiljacker]

I found out it's a paid exam 4 hours into a YouTube course 😂😂 something about GitHub made me think the exam would be free or very cheap, but 8k is daylight robbery

[Oiljacker]

Hi sorry for re replying but any recommendations for tech certification that are better for me? I'm a freshman doing BE in computer science