IICTI Certified Java Developer

Holders demonstrate that they can apply and evaluate jVM internals, JIT compilation and performance engineering, garbage collector selection and memory tuning, java Memory Model, virtual threads and structured concurrency and modern Java language design and JDK 21/25 LTS migration, plus 7 further areas, in realistic professional scenarios, as defined in the AQSCERT scheme for Java Developer.

Who it is for: Professionals working, or preparing to work, in software development roles.

1. 01JVM internals, JIT compilation and performance engineering5% of the exam

   • Diagnose and resolve JVM-level performance bottlenecks using profiling evidence and sound benchmarking.
   • Scope: HotSpot C1/C2 and Graal JIT, tiered compilation, inlining and escape analysis, deoptimisation, JMH microbenchmarking pitfalls, async-profiler, Java Flight Recorder and JDK Mission Control.
2. 02Garbage collector selection and memory tuning5% of the exam

   • Evaluate and tune garbage collection and memory configuration against latency, throughput and footprint targets.
   • Scope: G1, Generational ZGC and Shenandoah trade-offs, heap sizing and container-aware ergonomics, off-heap and direct memory, allocation profiling, heap dump analysis with Eclipse MAT, GC log analysis.
3. 03Java Memory Model, virtual threads and structured concurrency12% of the exam

   • Design correct, scalable concurrent code and diagnose race conditions, deadlocks and thread-pinning issues.
   • Scope: Happens-before and safe publication, Project Loom virtual threads and pinning, structured concurrency and scoped values, CompletableFuture, lock-free structures and VarHandles, jcstress concurrency testing.
4. 04Modern Java language design and JDK 21/25 LTS migration30% of the exam

   • Lead migration of large codebases to current LTS releases while preserving binary and behavioural compatibility.
   • Scope: Records, sealed types and pattern matching for data-oriented programming, JPMS modularisation, API compatibility and preview-feature policy, OpenRewrite-driven migration, javax to Jakarta EE 10/11 transition.
5. 05Spring Boot internals and advanced framework architecture8% of the exam

   • Architect Spring-based services and diagnose framework-level behaviour such as proxying, transaction and startup issues.
   • Scope: Auto-configuration and conditional beans, bean lifecycle, AOP proxy semantics, Spring AOT processing, Micrometer observability, Spring Boot 3.x and 4.x / Framework 7 changes, modular application design with Spring Modulith.
6. 06Persistence and data access performance9% of the exam

   • Design data access layers that remain correct and performant under concurrency and schema evolution.
   • Scope: Hibernate 6 fetch strategies and N+1 avoidance, second-level caching, transaction isolation and locking, jOOQ and native SQL trade-offs, HikariCP tuning, Flyway/Liquibase zero-downtime schema migrations.
7. 07Reactive and event-driven Java systems5% of the exam

   • Evaluate when to adopt reactive or event-driven designs and build resilient, backpressure-aware pipelines.
   • Scope: Project Reactor and backpressure, R2DBC, Kafka clients and Kafka Streams, exactly-once and idempotent processing, transactional outbox, reactive versus virtual-thread architecture trade-offs.
8. 08Cloud-native Java: native images and startup optimisation5% of the exam

   • Architect Java workloads for fast startup, low footprint and predictable behaviour in containerised platforms.
   • Scope: GraalVM Native Image and reachability metadata, CRaC checkpoint/restore, AppCDS and Project Leyden, Quarkus and Micronaut, JVM behaviour in containers and Kubernetes resource limits.
9. 09Secure Java engineering and software supply chain9% of the exam

   • Design secure Java services and build pipelines that resist common vulnerability classes and supply chain attacks.
   • Scope: OWASP ASVS 5.0, deserialisation and injection risks, Spring Security 6 with OAuth2/OIDC, secrets handling, CycloneDX SBOMs, dependency vulnerability management, Sigstore signing, SLSA and reproducible Maven/Gradle builds.
10. 10Advanced testing strategy for JVM systems7% of the exam

    • Design a layered test strategy that gives high confidence in correctness and architecture conformance at sustainable cost.
    • Scope: JUnit 5 extensions, Testcontainers, consumer-driven contracts with Pact or Spring Cloud Contract, mutation testing with PIT, property-based testing with jqwik, ArchUnit architecture fitness functions.
11. 11Production diagnostics and observability for JVM services5% of the exam

    • Diagnose production incidents in JVM services from telemetry and runtime artefacts and drive lasting fixes.
    • Scope: Thread and heap dumps, jcmd and JFR streaming, OpenTelemetry Java agent, tail-latency analysis, memory and classloader leak detection, safepoint and GC pause correlation, incident post-mortems.

Question types

Single choice 100%

Delivery

Online (remote proctored), Test centre, On-site (corporate)

Retakes

Up to three attempts within any 12-month period. A 14-day waiting period applies after a first unsuccessful attempt and 30 days after a second. Each retake requires a new booking and fee. Retakes draw a different randomised form from the question bank.

Provisional cut score — psychometric validation is required before live delivery. Blueprint v1.0.

1. 1

   Register

   Create a free account and start the programme.

2. 2

   Practice

   Online practice test (coming soon).

3. 3

   Training

   Optional

   Online course or classroom — or skip it.

4. 4

   Certification

   Independent exam and certification decision.

Training is optional and does not by itself confer certification. Find a training partner