Certification and Assessment Design

Decided: workshop-based, no exam (^q-002). Benchmark: Claude Frontier Academy. Decided: Microsoft issues the certificate; individuals earn it (^q-015). Deployment phase: leaning yes (^q-018). Firm-wide use: open (^q-017).

Proposed structure (for discussion)

flowchart LR
  N[Nomination<br/>by firm] --> W[In-person workshop<br/>multi-day, mock client engagement]
  W --> P{Graded practical}
  P -- pass --> B1["Badge 1: Frontier Certified Practitioner"]
  B1 --> D[Lead a real client deployment<br/>~8–12 weeks, Frontier check-ins]
  D --> R{Deployment review}
  R -- pass --> B2["Badge 2: Frontier Certified Engineer"]
  B2 --> F["Firm designation:<br/>Frontier Certified firm<br/>(N certified engineers + N deployments)"]

Badge names are placeholders.

Mixed audience

Not every role builds. The practical is role-specific (see Learner Personas): engineers build, PMs/engagement leads plan and govern an HVE engagement. All share one scenario and one rubric spine.

Individual credential

• Stage 1 — Practical (in workshop): a timed, hands-on build using the RPI workflow on the mock company. Graded by a rubric, by Frontier instructors.
• Stage 2 — Deployment (optional, recommended): lead a real client deployment. Submit artifacts: the HVE instructions/skills they wrote, the RPI plans, evals, the architecture and the handover doc.

Firm-wide use (open — ^q-017)

Individuals earn the certificate. Firms will want to say they are certified, so Microsoft needs a rule for that. Options to put to Microsoft:

1. No firm claim. Firms may say “N Frontier Certified professionals” only.
2. Threshold. A firm is “Frontier Certified” once it has ≥ X certified people and ≥ Y reviewed deployments.
3. Tiers. Like Anthropic’s partner tiers: levels by certified headcount + deployments + customer references. Without a rule, one certified person could badge a 300,000-person firm.

Rubric dimensions (draft)

Dimension	What we look for
Method	Followed RPI; review gates fit the risk of the change
Context engineering	Writes reusable instructions/skills that encode standards
Product depth	Uses Copilot, Foundry and Fabric correctly for the scenario
Quality & safety	Evals, security, responsible AI, data governance
Delivery	Client-ready handover, documentation, adoption plan

Integrity

• Microsoft issues the certificate/badge. We need its data spec early, e.g. Credly or Microsoft Learn profile integration.
• Credential expiry of 12 months, renewed with a short update workshop, because the products change fast
• Microsoft trademark rules for the credential name → Naming and trademark cautions

Official exams’ role

Not required to earn the credential. They could be eligibility prerequisites (e.g. GH-300) → ^q-019

Working Competency Rubric

See Competency and Evaluation Goals for observable behaviors, role-specific evidence, a provisional pilot rating scale, assessor calibration, and an observation template. Practice materials: HVE Sample Labs. These drafts elaborate the program design; final thresholds require approval.