Back in September 2018, the first-ever Unified Certified academy course was held. If you’re not familiar, the 2.5-day training course teaches people, mostly video streaming engineers, the best practices for streaming, and shows them how to use our portfolio of solutions and products.
Co-founder of Unified Streaming Dirk Griffioen led that first course eight years ago. Since then, almost 300 streaming industry folks have joined the active Unified Certified community.
Ask graduates, and they’ll tell you that Unified Certified’s an approachable way to get accredited in Unified Streaming software basics. Course takers grasp the fundamentals, learn new tips and tricks, and familiarize themselves with the bells and whistles of our software suite. Thanks to a recent refresh, the course is now better suited to equip enrollees with the skill set necessary for managing video streaming workflows.
Changing the parameters
As in life, so in software: change is a constant. Over time, the Unified Certified course has adapted to industry shifts and innovations.
The newest version, which was strategized, written, and orchestrated by lead trainer and Unified Streaming Support Engineer Mark Perry, made its inaugural run in November 2025.
Under Mark’s direction in the new curriculum, the streaming software bootcamp now offers students more opportunities to gain practical skills. Mark tasks the students with thinking through challenges, and this way the process of problem-solving takes hold stronger in the students’ minds.
After each course he recalibrates the course based on what worked best and how participants responded. All to improve the next iteration.
Checking for updates: hands off the hands-on
By mid-2025, the course revitalization was complete. Lead instructor Mark spent time scrutinizing the syllabus page by page, line by line, to see what needed changing. After he solicited opinions and feedback from Unified engineers, Mark cut things and grew others. He also revised the course’s sequencing.
“The logic has grown from what was already there,” said Mark. “For instance, subtitles used to be part of each section. So you would do static subtitles, as part of the module on static packaging, then when you do dynamic packaging, you cover dynamic subtitles, and so on. And that was unnecessary. It was better to pull the subtitles out and treat them as their own thing. And even though there might be slight differences within the workflows, it's easier for you to see them when you're doing them side-by-side as opposed to when you're doing two flavors of the same thing two modules apart.
“Same with timed metadata. You can really tackle all variations of one facet of the streaming syllabus as a single subject. So I built the basic knowledge, and then added to it later on, in a more meaningful way.
“We’ve changed how we teach the course. We put the onus more on the course taker to do the hard work. We give them all of the information. It's all there. But you've got to look around for it. You've got to think about what you're doing and why you're doing it.”
Creating a safe space (for mistakes)
Mark doesn’t just teach Unified Streaming core product know-how to people. He’s learning alongside them, too.
“The funny thing about instructing for the Certified course is that I see people make the same mistakes that I make every day myself. They happen to think their mistakes are really bad. Actually, they’re all quite normal. Usually it's just silly things that are just part and parcel of working with a command line, which doesn't leave much room for error.
“Teaching best practices in streaming has broadened my own understanding of our technology. The course helps me see where I need to improve my own knowledge. As I’m teaching, I’m refining what I know. Which is a great added benefit. For our students, too.”
Mastering specific skills, achieving better streams and support
In many instances Mark and his assistant Ilias Chatziathanasiou, who both work in support engineer roles, already know the people taking the course before the course begins. They’ve corresponded and collaborated, but never met. Since Mark and Ilias work at resolving customers’ support tickets via the Freshdesk portal, the thread of their previous communication stayed faceless, cut and dry.
“It's not easy to pick up on people's personalities over email or in tickets,” said Mark. “So when you see them in the course, the relationship really builds from there. It’s so nice to speak to people face-to-face, during the course. Either onscreen or in person during our on-site, pre-IBC course. They might open up to you about business things, and you also just get to know them.”
After the course, support continues, but then with more of a bond between Mark and Ilias and the course graduates, who sometimes still need help with ticket resolution.
“I hope that they feel a bit more confident when they're talking to us in support, because now they know it's me and Ilias, who they've seen in the course. Hopefully, this adds a bit of warmth to our actions, instead of it feeling very clinical.”
Unlocking group mind: welcome to the community
After candidates pass the Unified Certified exam, they’re welcomed into the global community of Certified graduates. There’s a Slack channel for them, and users pop up all the time with questions and to offer thoughts and help.
“You go onto the Certified channel now and people will ask questions if they don't think the issue warrants a support ticket. The nice thing is, you might go on there, and somebody's already answered the question from inside the community. It's nice to have that collective where people are willing to help each other out, even though they work for firms that could be competing.”
Since there is so much interaction after the course, the education continues. It’s ongoing. Peers help each other out, and discussions spur other discussions.
“Sharing knowledge is the thing,” Mark said.
Regarding assumed knowledge, skills takeaways
Though the course is open to anyone with a genuine interest in the subject, there are certain expectations of students going in.
“You should be comfortable with the command line,” said Mark. “And if you want to get the best out of the course, you should know about web servers. You should know bits about Apache. You should just be comfortable with kind of slightly technical things.”
The goal of the course is comfortableness and aptitude using Unified products, which, being modular, can be combined in different ways to create different solutions.
“The idea is that you graduate from the course, and if somebody suddenly says, ‘Okay, we're using (Unified) Packager and (Unified) Origin now,’ you would be able to do everything that would probably be demanded of you for the simplest workflows. You'd be able to create files. You'd be able to statically package them or dynamically package them. You'd be able to add subtitles. You'd be able to add accessibility information. You'd be able to use the media processing part of the software. You'd be able to frame-accurately manipulate things. Essentially you should have a basic idea of how the software works. You should be able to figure things out easily by yourself instead of leaning solely on our documentation to tell you what to do.”
One thing Mark enjoys is the sense of discovery among his students.
“Being more open about what they can do with our software is great to see,” he said. “I’ll have engineers who say, ‘I didn't know that you had Remix, and it can do this,’ or ‘I didn't know how to use Remix in this way.’ Especially with (Unified) Capture and stuff. They realize they can use it in more than one way.”
Nailing niche skills: not for everyone, and that’s okay
Being able to use streaming software is a niche skill. Even if Unified’s industry-grade software suite is well known in certain circles, there aren’t that many experts out there in the world, compared to, let’s say, the number of anesthesiologists.
So it’s with pride when Mark sees the frustration flip and the aha moment happen.
“A lot of this stuff, this set of rules and concepts, this group of abstractions, can seem very distant. You can see it in their eyes. ‘I don't understand, I don't understand.’ Then, suddenly, ‘Oh!’ And it's very nice to be present in that moment. When their world becomes less chaotic. A bit more organized. You walk away from it really feeling like you've achieved something. And that's nice. To help people take that journey.”
Call to faction
Interested in learning Unified Streaming skills? Find out more here. If you’re already a customer and want to participate, reach out to your account manager.
Or send us an email with your questions! Curiosity’s always welcome.