So Microsoft states if you complete all 3 Tiers you are a software developer:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/beginner/
We made the switch from VSS to SubVersion last night and, so far so good. We were hitting up against VSS limitations with branching and merging and SubVersion looks like it can handle this better. It's going to take a while to get use to the whole 'a file is not locked' concept but in theory we like the idea.