The Academy's credentials come in three levels: EMA-I (Associate), EMP-II (Professional) and EME-III (Expert). They sit on one ladder because the job changes as it grows. A first-time manager decides things for one team. A few years later the same person may be leading several teams through other managers, and later still running an engineering organisation where most of their influence goes through systems and other leaders.
All three levels draw on the same standard: the five domains of the EMA Competency Framework (People Leadership, Delivery & Execution, Strategy & Vision, Technical Judgment, and Culture & Coaching) and their 29 competencies. The domains stay the same as you climb. The scope of the decisions in the questions widens, and the bar rises with it.
EMA-I: leading one team
EMA-I is the Associate level and has no experience requirement. It's for engineers who are new to management, about to move into it, or already doing parts of it as a tech lead without the title.
The examination is 60 questions in 90 minutes, with a 70% pass mark. Its scenarios are set at team scope: one team, your direct reports, you acting directly. A question might put you in your second month as a manager, with a strong engineer who has started missing reviews and a product manager asking for a date you don't trust. It covers 27 of the 29 competencies; the two it leaves out, leading through other leaders and organisational design, only arise once you manage managers.
EMA-I is open now, and its page shows what it costs today.
EMP-II: leading across teams
EMP-II is the Professional level, with a recommended three or more years leading teams. This is the level working engineering managers should be aiming for. It isn't open for sittings yet. If you already manage, sit EMA-I now, which starts your credential record, and join the EMP-II waitlist on its page to hear the day it opens.
The examination will be 75 questions in 105 minutes, with a 75% pass mark. The scenarios move to organisational scope: several teams, usually led through the managers who report to you, with more of the work spent on other functions, competing roadmaps and the managers' own development. A Professional is expected to meet every EMA-I indicator as well as the ones EMP-II adds.
EME-III: leading an engineering organisation
EME-III is the Expert level, with a recommended seven or more years of experience. It isn't open yet either, and also has a waitlist on its page.
It will be 90 questions in 120 minutes, with an 80% pass mark, the highest bar of the three. The questions place you as a director, vice-president or head of engineering. Their material is the system: who owns what, the leadership pipeline, technical strategy, the economics of the whole function, and culture at the scale where a single decision takes years to show its effect. Information arrives late and filtered, and most questions ask you to weigh options rather than apply a known principle.
What the three have in common
None of them involves a course, a training purchase or a portfolio. Each is a timed online examination, and the clock is enforced on the server. The time per question tightens as you climb: 90 seconds at EMA-I, 84 at EMP-II, 80 at EME-III. Questions are scenarios. None asks you to name a framework or define a term.
The experience figures are recommendations and the Academy doesn't check them. They describe the scope the questions assume, and years spent in a quiet role won't make up for never having worked at that scope.
Each credential is valid for three years and is renewed by passing the current examination. There's no annual fee and no points to collect. Anyone can check a credential at /verify using its ID (an EMA-I credential looks like EMA-2026-00042), and each is also issued as an Open Badge.
Because the standard is shared, a credential history reads cleanly from outside. An EME-III holder's People Leadership judgment is the same competency EMA-I assessed, examined again at a wider scope.
Which level to start at
Start at the level that matches the decisions you make now, not the one that sounds most senior. Today that means EMA-I for almost everyone, since it's the only level open. If you're new to management, it's the right level anyway. If you've been managing for years, it's the first rung of your record while EMP-II is prepared, and your profile will show the next level once you hold it.
Where this sits in the standard
Each level has a published Exam Content Outline (EMA-I, EMP-II, EME-III) setting out what it assesses, competency by competency, and the Body of Knowledge chapter How Judgment Scales explains how the same competency changes from team to organisation to executive scope.
If you're building a ladder for your own organisation, the career-ladder template lays the same twenty-nine competencies out at the three scopes, free to copy and adapt.