October 19, 2022

How I came accross Umbraco?

I'm currently in the process of trying to land a software developer role. Part of my job search is going to meetups to make new connections. One such meetup was Tech After Five in Charlotte, NC. There I met some incredible and pleasant folks from Umbraco. They invited me to the US Umbraco Summit and even got me an invitation to the Umbraco Fundamentals Training course.

What is Umbraco?

In short, Umbraco is an open-source content management system. From my limited knowledge, it tries to provide a quick way to deploy a website without too much required programming knowledge. Some most definitely is necessary. You need more programming experience than you would in word-press. The platform has over a thousand known free packages. The platform seems to be gaining more popularity with every day.

What the class was like

I took the in-person training in Charlotte, NC. The course was about a half day of training. Much of it was reasonably technical, so prior general web development knowledge is probably a good idea. In general, the course wasn't too hard to follow, although it was a bit fast-paced. The teacher was very clear and helpful. Getting help and asking questions was easy in the laid-back atmosphere. We did not go into much of the inner workings of Umbraco. Most of the class seemed to be more of a demonstration of the product. There will be more on that below.

Getting certified as an Umbraco Professional

After completing the course, you are provided access to the Umbraco Fundamentals certification test for free. I failed the first time. Passing should not be an issue if you utilize the whole hour time limit for the test. At least 80% of the 20 multiple-choice questions must be answered correctly to pass.

Many of the questions on the test were various technical names, the correct syntax for certain operations, and various technical knowledge about Umbraco. Much of it was covered in class, but not all. As I had mentioned before, the course was more of a demonstration of the product rather than the inner workings of Umbraco. For example, they might demonstrate the correct way to invoke a particular command but won't go into much detail about why that is the correct syntax and what may be incorrect. If one is unfamiliar with C#, used for many commands in the Umbraco templates, the proper syntax and command names can be challenging to remember.

So one thing I might change if I retook the course is to take a C# fundamentals class. It is not required but might make passing the certification test easier.

Joining in the Umbraco US Summit festivities

The Umbraco team gave me a chance to attend the Umbraco US Summit. There was awesome swag like hats, stickers, pens, and a custom thermos with your name laser etched. Lunch and dinner were provided, and there was also a bar during the dinner. The summit had a very chill and relaxed atmosphere, honestly. I did not feel like I went to another corporate event. A good-sized crowd showed up for the summit. There were probably a couple hundred people in attendance.

The presentations throughout the day had two running in parallel. One presentation would be on the technical side of things and one on the general/business side of Umbraco operations. I mainly attended the technical presentations, and I enjoyed them.

Closing remarks

I went into this with absolutely zero sense of what Umbraco was. I came out as a certified Umbraco Professional. There is most definitely room for improvement, though. The time spent at the summit and class was well worth it. I can highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Umbraco CMS platform.