The Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE) certification is an internationally-recognized PHP certification established by Zend Technologies. An exam must be passed in order to be awarded the certification. It is intended to prove that a person is fully qualified to develop PHP web applications.[1][2][3][4][5] Rates for PHP developers frequently run higher for those with Zend Certified Engineer certification.[6]
There are almost 5,000 Zend Certified Engineers in the world with either PHP 4 or PHP 5 certifications. Zend's PHP 5 examination was introduced in August 2006, and the PHP 4 exam was retired in March 2007. The PHP 5.3 exam was introduced in the fall of 2010, although the 5.0 exam is still available to take. There is also a Zend Framework certification test available. All versions are mostly multiple choice examinations, although there are a few "fill in the blank" questions (generally asking about function names). The test currently has 70 questions (75 on the Zend Framework test) that must be answered in no more than 90 minutes. The pass/fail score is kept secret and at the exam's conclusion the test simply reports success or failure. Zend's PHP 5 exam costs US$195 as of October 2011[7] and is offered exclusively at Pearson VUE testing sites.[8][9][10]
To help Zend Certified Engineers gain exposure to potential employers, Zend lists all Zend Certified Engineers in its directory, Yellow Pages for PHP Professionals and allows ZCEs to join its exclusive LinkedIn group. They also allow Zend Certified Engineers to place a ZCE logo on their personal web site and resume.
Contents |
As PHP is mainly used as a web development language, the ZCE tests the candidate over a variety of skills necessary for developing web applications. The PHP 5 Certification exam covers[11][12]:
Although these are the Study Guide contents, there are more topics to consider in order to be prepared for the exam, such as use of the new extension PHP Data Object (PDO) layer to access databases, and the Standard PHP Library (SPL), a new set of classes specially created to manipulate objects as sets of arrays or files.