How to become a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE)
A few tips and tricks that I learned on my journey towards being a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert
A few weeks ago, I officially became a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE): Cloud Platform and Infrastructure after completing the Microsoft 70–535 exam.
This was my third and final exam towards this certification, so I thought I would share some of my top tips for getting the certification.
I chose the following three exams as my certification path:
- 70–532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions
- 70–533 Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
- 70–535 Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions
Passing the first two exams will earn you the MCSA: Cloud Platform certification. After that, you can take the 70–535 exam to earn your MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure certification.
For all three, I used the brilliant Udemy courses provided by Scott Duffy (why are all the luminaries of our art called ‘Scott’?). Microsoft update their exam requirements regularly. Scott’s courses are the only ones I’ve found that keep up to date with the changing exam requirements. Furthermore, Scott’s Udemy courses are tailored to track the exam requirements directly.
There are alternatives to Udemy; Pluralsight is an excellent resource for Azure developers, but it can be expensive (except for ASOS employees, who get a Pluralsight subscription for free) and doesn’t track the exam objectives. There is also Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) which offers free courses on a diverse range of subjects. Again though, MVA’s courses don’t track the certification exam objectives.
I also purchased official Microsoft practice tests from MeasureUp and did them a lot. The MeasureUp tests can be configured to run in either certification mode (just like a real exam) or in practice mode. Practice mode allows you to configure the number of questions you want to answer and also allows you to target specific exam objectives. There are a lot of companies out there that offer practice exams. I chose MeasureUp because they cover the most recently updated exam objectives.
I would recommend that you spend about two months studying for each exam. Don’t spend seven months studying for one exam, as I did with 70–535. If you leave it too long, you may find yourself having to go back and study new exam objectives. Pick a date a few months into the future then book your exam. This will help you to focus on the end goal.
Commuting time is study time! I estimate that I did about 70% of the studying for these exams during my daily commute.
Do the exercises. There are a few hands-on labs in the Udemy courses that will help you to properly understand the theory. I would also recommend doing the tutorials on the Azure documentation website.
As an ASOS engineer, you have £100 per month credit to use on Azure, as part of ASOS’ corporate MSDN subscription. This is enough credit to be able to try out everything you will need to practice for the exams. If you’re not an ASOS engineer and would like to be (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t?), we’re hiring!
If you don’t want to join the most awesome tech company in the UK, then Microsoft offer a number of free Azure options, for trying stuff out.
Cloud services are at the very heart of everything we do here at ASOS. We’re using technologies such as Service Fabric, Node, React, Serverless Computing and we’re exploring Kubernetes as we speak. Preparing for these exams will put you in a good place to understand and contribute to our ever-expanding Azure infrastructure needs.
Good luck!
Damian has been trying to write a game for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k since 1985. When he isn’t failing at that, he is a Lead Software Engineer at ASOS.
He loves writing simple, well-crafted code that gets the job done. He also loves working with his team of crack engineers, solving the unique problems of delivering systems at large scale.
