[austin-cheney]

Programming is writing logic, which is a universal quality. So the way I would do is to create a fictional programming language, provide some familiarity and training time immediately before a licensing exam (at the testing location), and then having the candidate solve real problems using the fictional language for the licensing exam. It tests for the ability to deliver solutions more than memorizing patterns or reproducing familiar conventions. Too many developers cannot write original logic.

Then there could be additional specialized qualifications above the base qualification, for example: security/certificates/cryptography, experimentation, execution performance, transmission/API management.