Introduction to Certification

Last updated: November 18, 2025

HackerRank certifications are free, timed assessments that allow developers to demonstrate their technical skills to potential employers. These certifications validate proficiency in high-demand skills, such as Python, JavaScript, and React, and job roles, such as software engineer and front-end developer.

Types of certifications

HackerRank offers two types of certifications:

Each certification test consists of two to four timed questions that evaluate key competencies employers expect for that skill or role.

Skill-based certification

Skill-based certifications evaluate expertise in a specific skill. HackerRank offers 21 technical skill certifications that range from universal competencies, such as problem-solving, to specialized skills, such as Java or Python. The following list shows all 21 skill-based certifications and the respective concepts assessed in each certification test:

Problem-solving

  • Problem-solving (Basic): Functions, currying, hoisting, scope, inheritance, events, and error handling.

  • Problem-solving (Intermediate): Data structures (For example, hash maps, stacks, and queues) and algorithms (For example, optimal solutions).

SQL

  • SQL (Basic): Simple queries, relationships, and aggregators.

  • SQL (Intermediate): Complex joins, unions, and sub-queries.

  • SQL (Advanced): Query optimization, data modeling, indexing, window functions, and pivots.

R

  • R (Basic): Fundamentals of the R programming language, including data frames, packages, reshaping data, and data interfaces.

  • R (Intermediate): Advanced concepts, including conditional statements, loops, functions, writing efficient and readable code, regular expressions, data structure manipulation, and handling dates and times.

REST API

  • REST API (Intermediate): Retrieving data from an API and processing it with parameters or paging.

JavaScript

  • JavaScript (Basic): Functions, currying, hoisting, scope, inheritance, events, and error handling.

  • JavaScript (Intermediate): Design patterns, memory management, concurrency models, and event loops.

React

  • React (Basic): Basic routing, rendering elements, internal state management, event handling, ES6 syntax, JavaScript, and form validation.

Angular

  • Angular (Basic): Model-view-controller (MVC) frameworks, components (angular, dynamic, styling), TypeScript, two-way binding, and form validation.

  • Angular (Intermediate): Routing, NgModules, observables for data transmission and event handling, dependency injection, and APIs.

C#

  • C# (Basic): Program structure, types and variables, basic object-oriented programming (OOP), properties and indexers, collections, and exception handling.

CSS

  • CSS (Basic): Cascading and inheritance, text styling, layout usage, and element boxing.

Go

  • Go (Basic): Core Go features, simple data structures (arrays and maps), data types, and interfaces.

  • Go (Intermediate): Functions, pointers, file handling, building web services, and error handling.

Python

  • Python (Basic): Scalar types, operators and control flow, strings, collections, iteration, modularity, objects, types, and classes.

Java

  • Java (Basic): Classes, data structures, inheritance, and exception handling (Java 7 or Java 8).

Node.js

  • Node.js (Basic): Package and module management, callbacks, event loops, event emitters, buffers, streams, and file systems.

  • Node.js (Intermediate): Event-driven architecture and concurrency.

Role-based certification

Role-based certifications evaluate multiple related skills to assess readiness for a specific job role. HackerRank offers the following role-based certifications and evaluates the respective skills for each role:

  • Software engineer: Problem-solving, SQL, and REST API

  • Software engineer intern: Problem-solving and SQL

  • Front-end developer (React): React, CSS, and JavaScript