Programmes
ASTRA Tech Fundamentals
Understand the technology you sell, support and promise — before someone asks.
Beta — free, by invitation, until 5 November 2026. Results are held until the pass mark is set; candidates who meet the final pass mark receive the credential without charge once credentials are issued.
Who it is for
People who face customers but do not design the technology: SDRs and new sellers, customer success and support teams, marketers, recruiters who hire technology sellers, first commercial hires at startups, final-year students and career changers.
What it certifies
Customer-facing understanding of modern technology — what a product is and who operates it, what a cloud quote line means, where data lives and what promises apply, what a security questionnaire is really asking, and what an AI claim can and cannot promise. It certifies knowledge and understanding. It does not certify engineering or security skills, and it does not certify deal-level commercial judgement — that is the ASTRA Tech Sales Associate programme.
The six modules
1
How modern technology products are built and delivered
SaaS, hosted and installed; APIs and integrations; roadmap versus available; releases and versions; where an AI feature sits.
2
Cloud and the price of running things
compute, storage and network on a quote; usage-based versus fixed; commitments, tiers and overages; pricing units; why AI is priced on usage.
3
Data: where it lives, who owns it, what can be done with it
collection, residency and access; retention, deletion and backup; "not used to train our models"; dashboards, reports and exports.
4
Security for people who make promises
identity and access; encryption at rest and in transit; matching a questionnaire question to the right evidence; what SOC 2 and ISO 27001 reports show; AI security questions and who owns them.
5
AI you will sell, use and be asked about
models, copilots, agents and automations; training versus retrieval; hallucination, bias and drift; evidence behind an AI claim; human-in-the-loop; safe use of AI tools.
6
From promise to delivery
buyer roles and decisions; proof of concept; reading a quote, order form and SLA; the sales-to-delivery handover; bounded wording for AI claims.
The examination
30 scored questions · 45 minutes · closed book · no calculator needed · single choice, select-exactly-N and match-each-row questions on short evidence items (a quote excerpt, an email, a data sheet, a questionnaire line, a product description). Two parallel papers. Pass mark set by a panel after the beta, as described at /how-we-certify. One sitting plus one free retake per voucher.
The credential
This credential attests that the holder passed an ASTRA Ready examination of customer-facing technology understanding at the Fundamentals level. It does not certify technical engineering or security skills, commercial judgement at deal level, performance in a specific job, or accreditation by an external body.
Questions
- What is the difference between ASTRA Tech Fundamentals and the ASTRA Tech Sales Associate?
- Fundamentals tests whether you understand the technology you sell, support or promise — the parts, the costs, the data, the security questions, the AI claims. The Associate tests whether you can make a defensible commercial decision with that understanding in a deal. Fundamentals is shorter (45 minutes, 30 questions) and is not a prerequisite.
- Is ASTRA Tech Fundamentals a technical certification?
- No. It certifies customer-facing understanding, not engineering or security skills.
- Can I buy it now?
- During the beta it is free by invitation. It goes on sale after the pass mark is set.
Version 1.0 · 8 October 2026 · Issued by ASTRA Ready