Whats after OCPJP? Enterprise Certs?

[alex jamison]

I have OCA 7 from a year ago and am thinking of going through the OCPJP 7. My question is, what's next?
I am not a developer currently but i was before, and I dont have desire to be a pure developer in the future BUT i want to be proficient enough to understand things technically and maybe eventually be involved in architecture designs etc. 
Should I go for one of the EE java cert developer certs and then maybe the Master? Some tips would be hugely appreciated!

[Pete Letkeman]

if you look at the OCP wall of Fame https://coderanch.com/wiki/659976/Ocpjp-Wall-Fame you can see that people go many different directions after getting their OCP certification.

You mentioned that you have your OCA for Java 7 you could also go for your Java 8 certifications.
It's my understanding that not too much has changed between the OCA Java 8 and Java 7 exams and you can even use of the Java 7 OCA study guides for Java 8 OCA.
However people such as Jeanne Boyarsky have stated that the OCP Java 8 exam is rather difficult and you cannot use Java 7 OCP books for the Java 8 OCP exam.

You can also go from OCA Java 7 to OCP Java 7 to OCP Java 8. But it is easier to go from OCA Java 7 to OCA Java 8 to OCP Java 8.
It's the same number of exams, but OCA exams are easier to pass.

There is also the question of Java 9 certification. You may not be aware of this, but Java 9 was released in Sept 2017.
There are many questions regarding how, where, and when Oracle will eventually mention this certification.
It's been speculated that Oracle may start with the Java 9 beta exams sometime in the fourth quarter of 2018 or the first quarter of 2019.
You can give yourself a head start by starting to learn Java 9 as there are a number of books out there regarding this topic which have been released in the last six months.
Not only that there are some people on this site who are actively learning Java 9 and I'm sure that they could help you out with your Java 9 questions.

What you do next also depends on what you want to do.
For example if you are interested in Android development then you may want to look into Kotlin (no certification available).
Or maybe you want to get into big data systems like Hadoop or SAP Hana, both of which your Java experience will be an asset and have certifications.

[Pete Letkeman]

me wrote:For example if you are interested in Android development then you may want to look into Kotlin (no certification available).

However there is a certification available by Google/Udacity for Android development, which I forgot to mention.

[alex jamison]

Pete Letkeman wrote:if you look at the OCP wall of Fame https://coderanch.com/wiki/659976/Ocpjp-Wall-Fame you can see that people go many different directions after getting their OCP certification.

You mentioned that you have your OCA for Java 7 you could also go for your Java 8 certifications.
It's my understanding that not too much has changed between the OCA Java 8 and Java 7 exams and you can even use of the Java 7 OCA study guides for Java 8 OCA.
However people such as Jeanne Boyarsky have stated that the OCP Java 8 exam is rather difficult and you cannot use Java 7 OCP books for the Java 8 OCP exam.

You can also go from OCA Java 7 to OCP Java 7 to OCP Java 8. But it is easier to go from OCA Java 7 to OCA Java 8 to OCP Java 8.
It's the same number of exams, but OCA exams are easier to pass.

There is also the question of Java 9 certification. You may not be aware of this, but Java 9 was released in Sept 2017.
There are many questions regarding how, where, and when Oracle will eventually mention this certification.
It's been speculated that Oracle may start with the Java 9 beta exams sometime in the fourth quarter of 2018 or the first quarter of 2019.
You can give yourself a head start by starting to learn Java 9 as there are a number of books out there regarding this topic which have been released in the last six months.
Not only that there are some people on this site who are actively learning Java 9 and I'm sure that they could help you out with your Java 9 questions.

What you do next also depends on what you want to do.
For example if you are interested in Android development then you may want to look into Kotlin (no certification available).
Or maybe you want to get into big data systems like Hadoop or SAP Hana, both of which your Java experience will be an asset and have certifications.

Thanks for the information! I took a look at the wall of fame, it seems the majority of the next steps are "EE" related certs, which makes sense given the oracle site for next steps. I agree that the topics vary drastically among EE certs.

Couple of additional Qs:
1. i am not sure i can get the funding to do an upgrade to OCA8 then OCP8. Will OCP7 not be that valuable at all?
2. I think with current tech market, i am more interested in the "web technology", Amazon, google and few other companies i am interested in are big in those space. Any suggestions? I am not looking to be a coder but to be technical enough to discuss architecture design and be the bridge between pure technical and pure business (something i am doing now)

[Pete Letkeman]

alex jamison wrote:1. i am not sure i can get the funding to do an upgrade to OCA8 then OCP8. Will OCP7 not be that valuable at all?

OCP 7 will most likely be around for a few more years, as you can still do your testing for Java 6 and that is older then the Java 7 certifications.

alex jamison wrote:2. I think with current tech market, i am more interested in the "web technology", Amazon, google and few other companies i am interested in are big in those space.
Any suggestions? I am not looking to be a coder but to be technical enough to discuss architecture design and be the bridge between pure technical and pure business (something i am doing now)

You may want to create a new thread and for question 2 as it does not have anything to do with this current thread topic.
People will see this thread's topic an automatically skip it as they do not care to comment on certifications.
But with a new topic and new thread you will most likely get more people viewing your question and hopefully answering them.
And if/when you do you should probably provide some of you background and experiences/history.
Nowadays most of not all of the tech is connected to the web in one way or another which is one of the reasons for big data systems and big data reporting.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Pete Letkeman wrote:It's been speculated that Oracle may start with the Java 9 beta exams sometime in the fourth quarter of 2018 or the first quarter of 2019.
You can give yourself a head start by starting to learn Java 9 as there are a number of books out there regarding this topic which have been released in the last six months.
Not only that there are some people on this site who are actively learning Java 9 and I'm sure that they could help you out with your Java 9 questions.

That would be the Java 10 or 11 cert given that time line .