Olga Kepa is an Integration Consultant at Infomentum. Follow Olga’s journey from her uncommon background in physics and engineering to becoming a MuleSoft developer. She shares her experience learning MuleSoft, her tips for training and preparing for the certification exam, her favorite use case, and the value of the MuleSoft Community.
My journey to MuleSoft
My background is somewhat unusual. I have a Master of Science in Physics and Engineering in Medicine (which I finished in the Medical Image Computing route) and a Bachelor of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering. When I was introduced to coding while studying for both degrees, I became intrigued by IT and decided to become a software developer.
Not long after graduating from university, I joined Infomentum as an intern which is where I was introduced to MuleSoft. During my internship, I noticed that many companies used MuleSoft as their digital transformation enabler and wanted to find out why the demand for it is so high. That’s how I started to learn the basics and got hooked!
At Infomentum, I work on many different MuleSoft projects (Mule 3 and 4). What I enjoy the most is the variety and active role I play in each of them. It has been an enormous learning curve, but thankfully my colleagues always have my back. They are there to support me and share their knowledge.
The rewards of learning MuleSoft
My journey with MuleSoft began with self-paced courses, starting with Anypoint Platform Development: Fundamentals (Mule 4), and I took the certification exam after the course to become a MuleSoft Certified Developer. I also had the opportunity to take the instructor-led Anypoint Platform: API Design course.
In my experience, MuleSoft courses are very comprehensive, giving me everything I need to know to hit the ground running in my job as an integration developer. They have a good balance of theory and practice, are well-structured, and most importantly, interesting!
I highly recommend studying MuleSoft if you are interested in an exciting, future-proof career in digitally transforming businesses through IT development. The prospects are endless! The demand for these skills is steadily growing as more businesses are pursuing digital transformation using MuleSoft technology. I enjoy my job as a MuleSoft integration developer, and all the projects I work on are interesting and diverse.
Getting the most out of your training courses
I learned C++ at university and self-studied Java in my spare time using resources available online. Java helped me a lot during my preparation to get MuleSoft Certified. Experience with an object-oriented programming language is key. It is also worth knowing technologies like HTTP, JMS, JDBC, REST, and SOAP, since they are integral to MuleSoft.
I recommend taking the Anypoint Platform Development: Fundamentals (Mule 4) course. There are two options: an instructor-led course or a free self-paced course.
The instructor-led training is highly impactful, as you learn much faster under the close supervision of your instructor. It is designed to get you up to speed with MuleSoft as quickly as possible.
Although the self-study course has less supervision, you can spend more time studying different concepts as you control the learning pace. Dedicated course forums provide self-paced students with support from MuleSoft instructors and community members.
Set yourself up for certification success
I highly recommend following the walkthroughs and attempting the DIY exercises presented in the course in Anypoint Studio™ and trying to understand what is happening step-by-step.
An absolute must in terms of exam preparation are the DIY exercises. I found them super helpful, as they allow you to fully understand a concept and put theory into practice. The exercises are not only a great resource to prepare yourself for the exam; they also give you an understanding of what kind of work you will be doing in real life as a MuleSoft developer. I think that earnest and thoughtful solving of all exercises will not only help in exam preparation, but also make your transition from training to a real-life project as smooth as possible.
The practice exam is also necessary, because it gives you an impression of how the questions are structured in the proctored exam. It is essential to familiarize yourself with the practice exam before attempting the proctored exam.
When preparing to take the certification exam, I also recommend practicing topics related to development:
- Accessing and modifying Mule events
- Controlling error flow and handling errors
- Writing DataWeave transformation
Using all of these MuleSoft Training and Certification resources as well as MuleSoft documentation and blogs will help you step into the MuleSoft world.
My favorite use case (so far)
In a project for one of our customers, we needed to find a solution that provided near real-time data synchronization between systems. The incumbent process was both time-consuming and costly, with significant amounts of rekeying and manual entry required to align the systems.
One part of this integration required sending employee data from Oracle Fusion HCM to Oracle Cloud Service and an on-premises active directory. To move the data to the destinations, I used a Scatter-Gather processor. MuleSoft provides a wide range of out-of-the-box components, which require simple configuration. The Scatter-Gather component sends messages to multiple targets concurrently and then collects and aggregates responses in a single message.
The whole process of building this part of the API was simplified thanks to Anypoint Studio already providing this integration pattern. Anypoint Studio is one of the many tools included in Anypoint Platform. Anypoint Platform unlocks and unifies data across systems, which helped achieve a solution that has realized a dramatic improvement in the accuracy of data in our customer’s internal systems.
Meeting MuleSoft developers all over the world
I have attended many MuleSoft Meetups. My favorite part about the MuleSoft Community is meeting other MuleSoft developers worldwide and sharing knowledge. I like that during the Meetups, MuleSoft developers share various features and anything new that’s being introduced. I recommend signing up for the Meetups if you want to see what it’s like to be a MuleSoft developer, meet other like-minded individuals, or learn more about MuleSoft. You don’t have to be MuleSoft Certified to attend them, but it’s a great place to pick up some tips while preparing for the exam.
The MuleSoft Developers LinkedIn group inspires me to constantly develop my skills in MuleSoft. It also feels great to be a part of a community where there’s a chance to meet other MuleSoft developers who just started their journey with MuleSoft as well as more experienced colleagues. The group is also a great place to hear about upcoming Meetups happening around the world.
More inspiration from a Forrester study
A commissioned Total Economic Impact™ study conducted by Forrester Consulting confirms Olga’s experience as a MuleSoft Certified Developer. Trained and certified developers and architects:
- Are 25% more efficient when working on large projects
- Are 20% more efficient when working on small-scale projects
- Spend 75% less time on error remediation, resulting in more time for work on interesting projects
- Report increased employee satisfaction
Visit MuleSoft Training and Certification to learn more about transforming an organization’s digital environment through integrating applications, data and devices with the #1 integration and API platform.
