How to Become a TYPO3 Developer - A Quick Guide

Published on : 23 Jun 2020

TYPO3 is one of the most popular free and open-source content management systems and so there lies a shining opportunity for TYPO3 developers too! One of the most unique things about TYPO3 is that it's an OpenSource, so people with basic internet skills can easily create and build websites. Tons of people use TYPO3 CMS. TYPO3 is an incredibly user-friendly system, although customizations require TYPO3 development and coding skills. This is where TYPO3 developers come into the picture.

How to Become a TYPO3 Developer - A Quick Guide

TYPO3 is one of the most popular free and open-source content management systems and so there lies a shining opportunity for TYPO3 developers too!

One of the most unique things about TYPO3 is that it's an OpenSource, so people with basic internet skills can easily create and build websites. Tons of people use TYPO3 CMS. TYPO3 is an incredibly user-friendly system, although customizations require TYPO3 development and coding skills. This is where TYPO3 developers come into the picture.

Table of Content

What is a TYPO3 Developer?

Let me try to define what is a TYPO3 Developer in the possible simplest words.

On learning TYPO3, a TYPO3 Developer can develop custom TYPO3 extensions and functions for TYPO3. TYPO3 developers actually know programming languages and can work with PHP, TypoScript, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, etc.

Being a TYPO3 Developer requires a knowledge of the TYPO3 core APIs, good PHP skills, and vast knowledge of TYPO3 functions and features to make a successful TYPO3 website with TYPO3 extensions and TYPO3 templates working together with better compatibility.

TYPO3 resources to learn TYPO3

Now you must be wondering where I could find easy resources to get started with to learn TYPO3. Don’t worry, we have a summed up guide for you to learn TYPO3 easily.

We recommend you read this guide 30 Best Resources to Learn TYPO3 for Beginners.

To have access to all TYPO3 resources we'd also recommend reading Beginners Guide to TYPO3 CMS, Community, and Resources.

In these educational blog posts, we’ve tried to cover all important TYPO3 resources which can help you to start your career and learn TYPO3 CMS.

Types of TYPO3 developers

Defining the term for the TYPO3 Developer is actually very complex and broad. There are different types of TYPO3 developers since the TYPO3 content management system is very widely functional and will have a lot of different requirements to work and develop for a TYPO3 Developer.

TYPO3 Core Developer

A TYPO3 core developer is someone who actually works on the TYPO3 core platform itself. Mostly TYPO3 core developer is working at TYPO3 GmbH or contribute from TYPO3 Community. These developers go into the code and make or recommend sets of changes to the TYPO3's core, which affects TYPO3 as a whole. These TYPO3 core developers work hard to enhance new features, functionalities for a better TYPO3 CMS platform. They constantly make improvements with major and minor TYPO3 releases that may be functional, security, and bug fixes.

TYPO3 Template Integrators

TYPO3 Template Integrators or we can say TYPO3 website developers create TYPO3 templates and working website structures for TYPO3 websites. This allows users to customize their TYPO3 sites with a specific look and feel, and choose the colors, layout, and style of all of their TYPO3 posts and pages.

TYPO3 Template Integrators use the designing standards by using the latest technologies like PHP, TypoScript, HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap 4, SaaS, less along with liquid template design.

TYPO3 Extension Developer

TYPO3 Extension developers develop custom, adaptive, and uniquely functional TYPO3 extensions for TER or your personal TYPO3 website. TYPO3 extensions are the functional set of code that can enhance and add functionality to your TYPO3 website. However, TYPO3 comes with basic functionalities but to boost your website in a specific direction, one needs dedicated and comprehensive TYPO3 extension development services to make your websites perform better.

Why Should One Become a TYPO3 Developer?

TYPO3 developers are essential to TYPO3's success, as there would be no extensive TYPO3 extensions or TYPO3 Templates without TYPO3 developers. In addition to TYPO3 developers being important to the TYPO3 process, you need to love TYPO3. Work only feels like work if you don’t love what you do, and if you love TYPO3, you should make a living creating it.

There are many technical aspects of TYPO3, and developers take the time and overcome the challenges to create functional TYPO3 websites.

Either you want to build a simple service based TYPO3 website or an e-commerce TYPO3 Shop, obviously, there comes a need for TYPO3 developers, and salaries for TYPO3 developers are also competitive as well.

Moreover, a large number of TYPO3 developers tend to be freelancers. You can teach yourself how to develop for TYPO3, and then work for yourself, set your own schedule, be your own boss, and work from anywhere. There is a lot of freedom in becoming a TYPO3 Developer. In addition to it, there lies golden opportunity TYPO3 developers have apart from TER, TYPO3 custom extension, and website development chance, i.e t3planet.com. It is the world’s first-ever TYPO3 store/marketplace with feature-rich B2B (Business-to-Business) & B2C (Business-to-Consumer).

Here, you will have the exclusive T3Planet Vendor account that will allow you to sell your TYPO3 templates and extensions. With T3Planet, you can earn money while contributing to the TYPO3 community as well. Develop a cool TYPO3 resource once and earn on every download!

Ultimately, the TYPO3 Developers hold the power and capabilities of functional innovation for the TYPO3 community.

Demo: TYPO3 SaaS Free Demo

To become a successful TYPO3 Developer, one must have his fundamentals clear.

TYPO3 has a large number of features that are suitable from small to medium to enterprise-level projects.

It would be nice to know-how backend features like page tree, list, file, etc., extension backend modules. Quick checkout Getting Started Tutorial documentation.

To get familiar with what the TYPO3 Backend and how easily manageable is TYPO3, we’d recommend having a test drive with our Free TYPO3 website builder, TYPO3 SaaS. Try it for 15 days free of cost.

How do I become a TYPO3 Developer?

So you want to be a TYPO3 Developer. Where do you start?

There are six simple steps to becoming a TYPO3 Developer. It all starts with learning and following the fundamentals of TYPO3 and practicing and applying these skills.

Grab the pre-requisite skills

To become an expert TYPO3 Developer, you need to master the fundamentals of TYPO3, and then your potential on the content management platform will be unlimited. TYPO3 developers can accomplish this by learning HTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL, and more. Knowing at least one of these languages will be very beneficial.

Learn everything about TYPO3

There is nearly an endless amount of TYPO3 resources on the web, which includes numerous topics that could help you with your TYPO3 development fundamentals like how to develop TYPO3 extension and much more similar resources to get started with. As well as there are different types of TYPO3 extensions available andfree TYPO3 templates available for you to experiment and know more about TYPO3.

Grabbing more and more TYPO3 knowledge from history to basics to complex technical fundamentals will help you become an all-rounder TYPO3 Developer!

Choose the area of TYPO3 development you love the most

To be more specific, there are different types of TYPO3 developers, so it’s important to choose the one you want to focus on and become a specialist in that. Clients always want the best and expert developer, and if you are the best at developing TYPO3 Extensions or Templates, then you will always have abundant work to do that you really love to do.

TYPO3 is a versatile platform that requires lots of technical knowledge. The key to success is to become a specialist in a part of TYPO3 that you're really interested in and love, instead of being okay at all of the parts of TYPO3. TYPO3 developers work hard and have lots of challenges to overcome, so picking one area and conquering it will lead to TYPO3 success.

Learn and prepare for TYPO3 errors and challenges

Learning TYPO3 from scratch is obviously a complex thing and it's obvious there would be some loopholes you'd face while you learn TYPO3. You will run into TYPO3 errors that will cause issues with the display and functionality of the TYPO3 website you develop.

This can lead to bugs in the code, degradation in the performance of your TYPO3 website and may even cause major system crashes. There are skills to learn to try to prevent bugs or more easily resolve issues, but security issues are also a concern.

Security and having your TYPO3 website hacked or information compromised is a major concern while TYPO3 development. There are measures you can take to prevent this and make your website as safe as possible. Also, backing up all your data is important, so you don’t lose hours and hours of work.

Practice and Develop an extension for community

We recommend you more and more practicing the skills you learn and try to place yourself in a complex situation and finding out its solution is the best way to learn TYPO3 skills, making them stronger. Once you’ve learned TYPO3 extension development, you should use what you’ve learned by testing and troubleshooting to find the best version of your TYPO3 extension and contribute it to TYPO3 Extension Repository as an offering for providing such a wonderful CMS.

One more thing, working on live websites can have bad results, so it’s best to test in a more controlled environment to avoid creating problems.

Connect with TYPO3 community

Making connections with other TYPO3 users is super important to success. TYPO3 community has lovely, supportive, and friendly people as compared to other OpenSource projects. We’ve been in touch with other communities but personally I just love the TYPO3 community, they are simply loving, welcoming, and helping people.

A community of TYPO3 users and developers can provide development and support on your questions, as well as have a forum for TYPO3 networking opportunities.

These skills and steps of things to learn TYPO3 is essential for becoming a TYPO3 Developer. There is also no definitive time limit of when someone becomes a TYPO3 Developer. It is always a learning process.

We recommend you read this cool article on How to Connect with The Amazing TYPO3 Community?

Are there any TYPO3 Books Available to learn TYPO3?

Trying to tackle TYPO3 as a beginner can be challenging, and the learning curve has slowed down many new users. So what can you do to go to the top of the class?

One of the TYPO3 teams is working hard to prepare TYPO3 Book, Read more at https://www.typo3book.com/ You can also find good TYPO3 Resources.

For advanced level of TYPO3 development skills, we would highly recommend reading the best available books by Michael Schams.

TYPO3 Extbase, 3rd Edition

The excellent book on Modern Extension Development for TYPO3 CMS with Extbase and Fluid!

We must say, Michael Schams works very hard and passionate about this book to help TYPO3 products and community.

Are you a beginner or intermediate level of the TYPO3 extension developer? Even if you feel advanced, then also you should read this book once a time, Because you may find many fundamentals which you may now be aware of.

Grab this book now from, Help and appreciate him for the great work https://leanpub.com/typo3extbase-3rd-edition-en

TYPO3 CMS Certified Developer

The 2nd great book from Michael Schams is specifically designed to prepare for the TCCD exam.

It’s an ideal study guide for the preparation of certification, The first edition contains 150 questions. Don’t miss to read “How to use this book” section before you start to read TYPO3 questions.

leanpub.com/typo3certifieddeveloper-en

It will give you the basic idea and information about how the exam will be conducted.
What kind of questions will be there during the exam?
It will help you to learn and understand how to deal with tricky questions?
The book already covers most of the syllabus defined by the certification team.
The quality of the book is, The author logically explains why the particular answer is correct?

TYPO3 CMS Certified Integrator

To prepare for the exam, we would highly recommend reading the best available books by Michael Schams.

It’s an ideal study guide for the preparation of certification, current 5th edition contains 250 questions. Don’t miss to read “How to use this book” section before you start to read TYPO3 questions.

To prepare for the exam, we would highly recommend reading the best available books by Michael Schams.

Are there any TYPO3 videos Available?

Yes, although there are very-less TYPO3 videos available. Although subscribe official Youtube channel and check out some old-videos which will help you to learn particular TYPO3 topic at- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwpl8LY9Tr3PB26Kk2FYW_w

Blogs to refer to learn TYPO3

You can subscribe to the popular TYPO3 blog.

We are continuously writing TYPO3 blog, so we recommend to subscribe our TYPO3 Newsletter at https://t3planet.com/subscribe-typo3-newsletter/

Stay active on TYPO3 Social Media Platforms

To get up-to-date with TYPO3 CMS and Community, Subscribe now following the social media platform.

Official TYPO3 Profile

Un-Official TYPO3 Groups

What is TCCI (TYPO3 CMS Certified Integrator)?

The TYPO3 CMS Certified Integrator (TCCI) exam was the first certification provided by the TYPO3 Association in the year 2008.

The certification team defines the role of “certified TYPO3 integrator” as follows:

“A TYPO3 CMS Certified Integrator develops the template for a website, configures all necessary extensions, and creates access rights for backend users. An integrator does not install TYPO3 on the web server and does not develop extensions, but knows how to configure a pre-installed TYPO3 instance.”

So when you feel the right time, do appear for the TCCI exam. We recommend reading How to prepare and pass the TYPO3 CMS Certified Integrator (TCCI) exam?

What is TCCD (TYPO3 CMS Certified Developer)?

The TYPO3 association certification team defines the role of “certified TYPO3 Developer” as follows:

“A TYPO3 CMS Certified Developer has to have experience collected through projects, should know the architecture, design patterns, best practices, and a fair share of internals both TYPO3 CMS and the extension framework. TYPO3 CMS Certified Developer can implement an extension completely in a state-of-the-art way. They write clean code by following the TYPO3 Coding Guidelines (CGL), and they are well versed in a wide range of topics, from the initial setup of an extension up to the point of publishing it in the TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER).”

When you feel confident and ready with your TYPO3 knowledge, we recommend you to appear for the TCCD Examination (TYPO3 CMS Certified Developer).

And That's it!

While TYPO3 is a very user-friendly content management system, TYPO3 developers are essential for TYPO3's success. At some time, we are sure that you will learn TYPO3 and contribute to the TYPO3 community.

Becoming a TYPO3 Developer requires strong software development and computer programming skills, and learning programming languages is an acquired skill that people can learn.

There are many paths to becoming a TYPO3 Developer, and depending on the type of developer you want to become, there are different types of skills to learn. Comment your questions if you have to learn TYPO3.

Happy TYPO3 Learning!

Dhyana Chauhan

Tech Expert & Customer Manager

Dhyana Chauhan is the customer support manager at T3Planet, having vast experience as an technology lead who loves exploring everything that’s in trend, especially TYPO3. Being a TYPO3 fanatic, in her free time, she loves…