Postgres1st offers two vendor-neutral PostgreSQL certification exams that validate hands-on, production-grade skills: Postgres1st Certified PostgreSQL Professional – Essentials and Postgres1st Certified PostgreSQL Professional – Advanced. Both are built on PostgreSQL 18 and written by practitioners who run PostgreSQL in production every day.
Essentials is the entry-level certification and the starting point of the pathway; Advanced follows for professionals ready to validate senior-level skills.
Proves job-ready skills to employers and clients, not just theory
Scenario-based questions drawn from real production incidents
Aligned to the Postgres1st Essentials (3-day) and Advanced (5-day) training courses
Verifiable digital credential to share on LinkedIn and résumés
PostgreSQL now runs mission-critical workloads across banking, government, telecom and SaaS, yet proven PostgreSQL talent remains scarce. A certification gives employers, clients and project owners an objective, independently tested measure of skill — replacing guesswork based on résumés and interviews.
For organizations, certification is a practical way to build and prove in-house capability. Teams can benchmark current skills, close gaps through targeted training, and certify resources against a common standard before assigning them to production systems, migrations or client engagements. A certified bench also strengthens RFP and tender responses, partner qualifications and customer confidence.
assess existing DBAs and developers to identify gaps by domain
move teams from Essentials to Advanced along a defined pathway
certify resources before they own production or migration work
show certified headcount in proposals, tenders and partner programs
give engineers a recognized career milestone
For individuals, certification validates hands-on expertise, improves job and project prospects, and signals commitment to the PostgreSQL ecosystem.
This exam certifies that a database professional has the fundamental knowledge to set up, maintain and manage a PostgreSQL server and its applications in a production environment.
junior and mid-level DBAs, developers and DevOps engineers working with PostgreSQL, system administrators taking on database duties, and DBAs moving from Oracle, SQL Server or MySQL.
a certified Essentials professional can:
Install PostgreSQL 18 and explain its process and memory architecture
Create and manage database clusters, databases, schemas and tablespaces
Use psql and pgAdmin for day-to-day administration
Configure server parameters, logging and log analysis
Manage users, roles, privileges and client authentication (pg_hba.conf)
Take logical and physical backups, restore them, and perform point-in-time recovery
Essentials is the baseline certification for any team member who touches PostgreSQL. It confirms that resources can run day-to-day operations safely and are ready to support production systems under supervision.
Building on Essentials, this exam certifies that a database professional can perform advanced responsibilities — performance tuning, replication and failover, backup and PITR, and upgrades — to keep PostgreSQL servers and applications running reliably in production.
2+ years administering PostgreSQL, or completion of the Postgres1st Advanced Training (5 days, 21 modules). Candidates are expected to hold the Postgres1st Essentials certification first.
senior DBAs, database and solution architects, SRE and platform engineers, and consultants who design, tune and support business-critical PostgreSQL deployments.
a certified Advanced professional can:
Diagnose and tune performance using EXPLAIN, statistics views, indexing strategy and memory settings
Plan and manage VACUUM, autovacuum, bloat control and routine maintenance at scale
Design and operate streaming and logical replication, failover and high availability
Run online backups, PITR and major-version upgrades with minimal downtime
Implement table partitioning and connection pooling, and plan migrations from other databases
Secure the database and query the system catalogs to troubleshoot issues
Select, deploy and manage extensions and third-party tools
Advanced certification identifies resources who can own production systems independently — leading migrations, handling incidents and meeting uptime and performance commitments. It is the benchmark for senior and customer-facing roles.
| Exam Details | Essentials | Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Level | Foundation / associate | Professional / advanced |
| Format | 60 multiple-choice questions, single correct answer | 60 multiple-choice questions, single correct answer |
| Question style | Concept and task-based, Easy to Hard | Mostly scenario-based, Medium/Hard |
| Duration | 90 minutes | 90 minutes |
| Passing score | 70% (42 of 60) | 70% (42 of 60) |
| Delivery | Online, remotely proctored; or on-site at the end of instructor-led training | Online, remotely proctored; or on-site at the end of instructor-led training |
| Language | English | English |
| PostgreSQL version | 18 | 18 |
| Result | Instant score with domain-wise breakdown | Instant score with domain-wise breakdown |
| Retake | After 14 days; one retake included | After 14 days; one retake included |
| Credential validity | Tied to the PostgreSQL version certified | Tied to the PostgreSQL version certified |
| Exam fee | TBD | TBD |
Every candidate receives a unique paper drawn from a large, regularly refreshed question bank, weighted to the domain blueprint above.
attend the matching Postgres1st instructor-led course (public, private corporate or virtual batches) or self-study against the domain list above. Hands-on lab practice on PostgreSQL 18 is strongly recommended.
purchase the exam voucher at postgresfirst.com or as part of a training bundle; corporate volume vouchers are available.
schedule an online proctored slot at your convenience, or sit it on the final day of your training.
successful candidates receive a digital certificate and a verifiable badge with a unique credential ID, shareable on LinkedIn.
for exam scheduling, corporate vouchers and partner programs.