About The Bootcamp

BigCommerce has developed a program aimed at both newcomers and seasoned BigCommerce developers called “BigDev Bootcamp.” BigCommerce Partner employees go through a week-long BigCommerce API training camp for a hands-on, in-depth experience. 

Participants interact with their trainer and their fellow developers to enhance their BigCommerce knowledge in a collaborative environment. By the end of the course, participants are ready to lead their teams. 

As a BigCommerce Partner, it's imperative that our team of developers has the hands-on knowledge to effectively build on the BigCommerce platform. Given BigCommerce's open API structure, we developers have the freedom to create extraordinary merchant experiences. At Kensium, our standard is to meet every specification of our clients while exceeding their expectations. That's why we decided to invest in deep dive technical training

Kensium sent four of its senior team members through the BigCommerce Virtual BigDev Bootcamp. I, Philippe R Collin III and Vice President of Technology at Kensium, was lucky enough to be included. I wrote this recap blog to explain my personal experience with one of the best training courses I’ve ever taken. 

What You Will Learn

A huge differentiator BigCommerce offers is its ability to be a headless system. Throughout the course, we learned, explored, and participated in exercises that helped us fully understand how to utilize the various API’s that BigCommerce has to offer. When I finished the course, I had a first-rate understanding of using each API, even with little to no experience in some of them. Here are some of the APIs I got schooled in: 

• Stencil Essentials
• Storefront API
• Catalog API
• Checkout (Server to Server Cart API/Checkout & Payments API)
• Orders API

One of the best parts of the course was that I could immediately take the certification exams with everything I learned from the week still fresh in my mind. My whole team (including myself) was able to pass the exams right away! 

Signup

It’s easy to get signed up. If you are a BigCommerce partner, log in to your partner portal and navigate to the BigCommerce BigDev Bootcamp page. You can also reach out to your partner manager and let them know you would like to be involved. BigCommerce goes out of their way to help get their partners signed up and involved with training and anything else their partners might need. 

Preparation For The Course

I didn’t need to do much to prepare for the course. The team at BigCommerce sent me everything I needed to get started, and I was ready to jump in on the first day. In addition to providing me with all the material, they helped walk me through the setup.  Everyone in the course that I took was fully prepared and ready to work on day 1. 
To get started, participants must:

1. Have a free-trial store setup.
2. Have Postman installed with a basic understanding of how to use it.
3. Have an integrated development environment (IDE) set up.
4. Have Stencil CLI installed.

The Staff

My favorite aspect of the course was the support from the BigCommerce team who offered to assist during the set up and answer any needful questions. I was also lucky enough to have Luke, my instructor. Luke was hands-on, informative, and always more than happy to stop and help anyone he noticed was struggling. Not only was Luke very knowledgeable about the topics, but he would also theorize uses for the APIs, provide real work examples of implementations, and helped with tasks like IDE setup, Postman configurations, and Stencil CLI installations.

The Course

The BigCommerce BigDev Bootcamp was the best training course, in person or online, that I have ever taken. Since the group that took the class with me was reasonably small, Luke encouraged a lot of interaction between the group. He stated from the very beginning that we were allowed to stop him if we were confused or had any questions. Many of us were very open and honest when we had issues, and he took the time to help each of us. Most of the sessions turned into group problem-solving sessions when one of us had an issue, which made the learning experience stronger and helped me retain the new information. 

My suggestion to BigCommerce is to keep the course structure and size the same for future courses. The ability to work with your peers in a fully interactive lab environment helped us learn at a pace that was beneficial to all team members. The teaching atmosphere helped solidify the concepts in my brain.

What Happens After The Exam

After you pass the exams, a partner certification manager will reach out to you and present you with your certifications. You will receive one for each course that you take. I put mine up on LinkedIn and shared it with my team members to encourage them to dig in and get certified.

All In All

I would strongly suggest the BigCommerce BigDev Bootcamp to any partner that would like to build a strong foundation for their teams and tout BigCommerce certifications when presenting proposals to prospective clients. Kensium’s goal is to get all of their team members certified!

Thank you, BigCommerce!