Program Summary

The certificate is designed for professionals with undergraduate degrees in STEM or relevant experience in software development. It comprises 4 courses taught over 2 semesters of 15 weeks each, combining formal lectures with hands-on projects. The curriculum focuses on analysis, design, and production methodologies—teaching students to evaluate system requirements, architect effective software solutions, and implement disciplined processes for development, testing, and deployment.

Participants develop a comprehensive skill set that extends beyond coding to include systems analysis, software design, and project management techniques. In an era where AI is transforming technology, these software engineering practices are increasingly valuable. The program equips individuals to address complex challenges in the tech industry, advance their careers, and pursue further academic study in software engineering.

All credits earned in the certificate can be applied towards the M.S. in Software Engineering, with select courses also counting towards other advanced degrees offered by the College of Computing.

Program Details

Detailed curriculum and course requirements for the Certificate in Software Enginering, Analysis & Design is available in the catalog of the program.

Prerequisites ▼

Students without a computing background who wish to prepare for the program may want to consider the below listed courses. Proof of completion of these courses is also accepted as supporting material for applications to the program.

Core Courses & Competencies ▼
[take one or two]
IS663 Software Analysis and Design
Skills: System Modeling, Object-Oriented Analysis, UML Diagramming, Business Process Mapping, Domain Analysis, Functional Decomposition

Environments & Tools: Lucidchart, Visual Paradigm, Enterprise Architect, Rational Rose, StarUML, Microsoft Visio
CS673 Software Design and Production Methodology
Skills: Software Verification, Formal Specification, Formal Testing, Agile Development, eXtreme Programming, Pair Programming, Program Correctness Proofs

Environments & Tools: Xcode, Android Studio
Elective Courses & Competencies ▼
[take at most two]
IS661 User Experience Design
Skills: User Experience Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Personas, Scenarios, User-Centric Design, Prototyping, Design Critiques, Usability

Environments & Tools: Visio, Axure, Figma
IS676 Requirement Engineering
Skills: Eliciting and Analyzing functional/behavioral and non-functional requirements (e.g., availability, usability, security), Translating into Technical Specifications, UML, Formal Methods, Product Backlogs, User Stories and Acceptance Criteria, Use cases, GenAI assisted requirements elicitation and analysis, Requirements Management throughout the Development cycle, Agile traceability, validation and verification; LCM, Agile and Hybrid methodologies context; Team project, as an agile team, focused on requirements elicitation (GenAI assisted), market resrech , vision, analysis, specification and prototyping

Environments & Tools: Attlassian Jira, Visio, draw.io, Figma, GitHub
CS643 Cloud Computing
Skills: Memory Protection Bypass, Buffer Overflow Analysis, Format String Exploits, Network Attack Analysis, Malware Analysis, Side Channel Attacks, x86 Assembly, Exploit Development

Environments & Tools: VMware/VirtualBox, GDB Debugger, C/C++ Development Tools, Linux/Windows, AWS EC2
CS683 Software Project Management
Skills: Project Planning, Risk Management, Agile Methodologies, Scrum, Estimation, Team Leadership

Environments & Tools: JIRA, Trello, MS Project, GitHub Projects, Confluence, Slack
CS684 Software Testing and Quality Assurance
Skills: Coverage-based testing, Fuzzing, Mutation testing, Random testing, Metamorphic testing, Differential testing, Test oracle generation, Invariant generation, Static analysis, Abstract interpretation, SMT solvers, Program verification

Environments & Tools: AFL, gcov, EvoSuite, Cobertura, Daikon, Infer, Checker Framework, Z3
CS685 Software Architecture
Skills: 4+1 Architecture Model, Architectural Styles, Interface Isolation, Decoupling, Software Patterns, Quality Attributes (Availability, Modifiability, Performance, Security, Usability, Testability, Interoperability), Architectural Tactics, Architecture Evaluation, Component-Based Design, Cloud Architecture, Risk-Driven Architecture, Documentation

Environments & Tools: Enterprise Architect, ArchiMate, Draw.io, Lucidchart, Miro, Visio
Campus Options & Cost ▼
Tuition & Fees by Campus (based on AY 2024-2025 rates)
  • Online: $13,716
  • Newark, NJ residents: $17,192-$18,540
  • Newark, non-NJ residents: $23,900-$25,248

The lower amounts assume student takes two courses in a summer semester.

For details, see NJIT's Tuition and Fee Schedule.

For information about cost of living see Tuition and Costs at NJIT.