Atlassian Exams

The Atlassian Footprint

Atlassian holds an estimated 65% market share in the issue tracking and project management software segment for technical teams. Founded in Sydney in 2002, the company bootstrapped its way from a single bug tracker - named Jira, after the Japanese word for Godzilla - to a $5.2 billion enterprise software vendor.

If an organization builds software, they likely use Jira. This market dominance creates a persistent demand for professionals who know how to configure, administer, and troubleshoot Atlassian environments. A poorly configured Jira instance quickly becomes a tangled web of custom fields, broken workflows, and ignored notifications. Employers use Atlassian certifications to identify professionals who can maintain order and enforce governance.

Atlassian Certification Structure

Unlike networking or cloud vendors that maintain dozens of credentials across multiple technology tracks, Atlassian keeps its certification portfolio narrow. The program focuses almost entirely on Jira and its specific use cases.

The certifications differentiate between two main personas: the system administrator who manages the global backend, and the project administrator who configures individual workspaces. Atlassian also splits its credentials by deployment type, offering distinct exams for Cloud environments and legacy Server or Data Center installations.

Core Administration vs. Project Management

The Administrator Track

The ACP-100 (Jira Administrator) is the flagship credential in the Atlassian ecosystem. It targets professionals with two to three years of experience managing global settings in Jira Data Center or Server environments.

This exam tests your ability to translate business requirements into technical configurations. You must understand how to manage complex workflows, configure permission schemes, and map issue types to specific screens. The proctored test runs 180 minutes and contains up to 70 scenario-based questions. Passing requires a deep understanding of how different schemes interact. For example, you need to know exactly how modifying a global permission scheme affects project-level security across the entire organization.

The Project Manager Track

Not everyone needs global administrative access. Scrum masters, product owners, and department leads often need to control their own workspaces without altering the entire company's Jira architecture. Atlassian offers project-level certifications for this exact role.

The ACP-620 (Managing Jira Projects for Cloud) validates your ability to configure and maintain Jira Cloud projects. It covers the critical differences between company-managed and team-managed projects. Candidates must demonstrate proficiency in configuring Scrum and Kanban boards, writing JQL (Jira Query Language) for advanced filters, and building automation rules using triggers and conditions. The exam runs 180 minutes and contains approximately 70 questions.

For organizations still operating on self-managed infrastructure, the ACP-600 (Project Administration in Jira Server) tests similar concepts but within the confines of the older Server architecture. Because Atlassian discontinued its Server products in early 2024, the ACP-620 holds more immediate relevance for the current job market.

Specializing in Service Management

Jira is no longer just for software developers. IT support, HR, and legal teams use Jira Service Management to handle internal and external requests. Service management requires a different configuration mindset than agile software development.

The ACP-420 (Managing Jira Service Projects for Cloud) targets administrators responsible for these helpdesk environments. The exam tests your ability to configure request types, build customer portals, and establish Service Level Agreements (SLAs). You also need to know how to integrate Confluence knowledge bases so users can resolve their own tickets before they reach an agent's queue. Managing internal agent permissions versus external customer access is a heavy focus on this test.

Career Value

Atlassian certifications carry specific, practical weight. They do not prove theoretical project management concepts. They prove you know which settings to adjust and which schemes to apply to make a development team function.

Organizations migrating from legacy on-premises servers to Atlassian Cloud face a massive configuration challenge. They need administrators who understand how cloud automation rules differ from server-based post-functions. Holding the ACP-100 alongside a cloud-specific credential like the ACP-620 signals to hiring managers that you can manage the technical debt of a legacy instance while building the architecture for a modern SaaS deployment.