Bhatia Rahul, former Intern at Happy Shappy
I recently took and cleared the certification test. I have been developing android apps for almost 6 months , and was well versed with most of the common concepts required in Android development, but I still thought that the test was not too easy.
Also, currently they give 24 hours and not 48 hours to complete the task.
Before taking the exam I was very nervous and went through a number of blogs in an attempt to get some info on what kind of tasks they give, but to no avail. I saw the syllabus, and thought to go ahead and give it a try, even though I was in no way well versed with all the topics given in the syllabus.
I was given the task to make a Task Scheduling App - You can add tasks, delete them, add alarms to tasks, and follow the material guidelines for the UI. You will be given an initial code to start off with( a scenario that a developer had started working on the project and then he left and now you need to complete it) , and you have to add on to that.
The guidelines are awesome. They are very precise and clear, so there would be no problem in following them. Also most of the UI design is already done in the initial code. The UI part you need to do is really easy even for a beginner, and will take at most 30 mins to 1 hour.
As far as the test is concerned, the small tasks are aimed to cover all core concepts- content providers, broadcast receivers, Activity and fragment lifecycle, shared preferences, services, task scheduling, AsyncTask, preference fragments etc. The part I faced a problem with was the unit testing part. I had no experience in Unit Testing( and a lot of intermediate developers don’t), so I had to learn about it and write the tests. It took me about 12–13 hours to complete the task( including the time to study about JUnit tests).
After this, I got a mail within 2 days saying I had cleared the first round, and it was asked to schedule the exit interview. The questions asked during the exit interview was really easy and were based on Android basics.
Over all, I would rate that the exam was of a medium difficulty level.
Tips -
Please cover the topics mentioned in the syllabus , that way you can complete the task easily in 6–8 hours. Also, a good place to start is with the online Udacity Course given in the learning resources section on Google AAD Certification page.
Perks -
Invitation to attend Google developer conferences in your country, and also if your world rank is good( it isn’t mentioned explicitly) you might get to attend Droid Talks.
