It is my pleasure to share with you my recent achievement. Now I’m IEEE Computer Society Certified Software Development Professional CSDP.

The CSDP credential is intended for mid-career software development professionals that want to confirm their proficiency of standard software development practices and advance in their careers.

Certified Software Development Professional should:

• Possesses fundamental knowledge and understanding of computing principles and concepts and their application to the definition, design, construction, testing of software.
• Be able to apply design principles with technical and economic tradeoffs to modules, subsystems, and systems in accordance with standards of practice, specifications, and principles of behavior of software as required to perform the functions as stated in the software requirements.
• Has met the IEEE CS CSDP education, experience, and examination requirements.

How to become an CSDP:

1. Application Steps
   1. Obtain CSDP candidate brochure from IEEE Computer Society http://www.computer.org/certification/
   2. Review requirements
   3. Complete application
   4. Send completed application to IEEE CS by deadline with fee
   5. Acknowledgement of payment
   6. Review of application
   7. If accepted, authorization to test sent to candidate
2. Requirements for Certification
   1. Education: (need at least one)
      • You have a bachelor’s degree
      • You are a CSDA certificate holder
      • You are an educator at the post-baccalaureate level
      • You are a full member of the IEEE
   2. Experience: (need at least one)
      • You have an advanced degree in software engineering and at least two years (about 3,500 hrs) of experience in software engineering/development
      • You have at least four years (about 7,000 hrs) experience in software engineering/development
3. Preparation for Examination
   1. Depends on level of expertise in areas covered by Body of Knowledge
   2. Focus on areas needing the most review
   3. Study from the suggested reference material
   4. Can take a refresher course (see CSDP website)
   5. Unless your background covers most of the Body of Knowledge, allow three months of 2-4 hours a week for study
   6. Last week: assemble test access materials
4. Examination
   1. Length: 4 hours
   2. Closed book, computer based
   3. At a Prometric training center (in Egypt only AMIDEAST Cairo branch)
   4. Format
      • 180 multiple-choice questions that are based on concepts and experiences that should be familiar to a proficient software engineering professional with 7,000 or more hours of experience. The topic areas are grouped by question deve lopment into domains. The percentage range of questions in each area is as follows:
      • Business Practices and Engineering Economics (3–4%)
      • Software Requirements (13–15%)
      • Software Design (22–24%)
      • Software Construction (10–12%)
      • Software Testing (15–17%)
      • Software Maintenance (3–5%)
      • Software Configuration Management (3–4%)
      • Software Engineering Management (10–12%)
      • Software Engineering Process (2–4%)
      • Software Engineering Tools and Methods (2–4%)
      • Software Quality (6–8%)

General References :

• Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, Latest ed.,
  Pressman, Roger S., New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Software Engineering, Sommerville, I., Latest ed.
  Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.
• SE Body of knowledge http://www.swebok.org
• Online review course http://www.computer.org/certification/DistanceLearning/index.htm 
• Yahoo study group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ieee_csdp/
• Software Engineering Vol. 1: The Development Process, 2nd Edition.
  Dorfman, M. & Thayer, R., editors,
  Los Alamitos, California: IEEE Computer Society Press, 2002.
• Software Engineering Vol. 2: The Supporting Processes, 2nd Edition.
  Thayer, R. and M. Christensen, editors,
  Los Alamitos,California: IEEE Computer Society Press, 2002.
• IEEE Software Engineering Collection, 1999, vols. 1-4.
  Piscataway, New Jersey: IEEE.

Comprehensive Reading List :

1. “Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) Approach” | Software Tech News, vol. 11, no. 4, Dec. 2008
2. A Specifier’s Introduction to Formal Methods | Jeannette M. Wing | Computer, vol. 23, no. 9, Sept. 1990, pp.10-23
3. Algebraic Structures | Alex Lopez-Ortiz | Alex-Lopez Ortiz web page
4. Applied Statistics and Probability for Engineers, 4th Edition | Douglas C. Montgomery and George C. Runger | Wiley
5. Applying Formal Specifications to Real-World Software Development | Girish Keshav Palshikar | IEEE Software, vol. 18, no. 6, Nov. 2001, pp. 89-9.7
6. Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed | Barry Boehm and Richard Turner | Addison Wesley
7. Code Complete, 2nd Edition | Steve McConnell | Microsoft Press
8. Computer Algorithms, 2nd Edition | Ellis Horowitz, Sartaj Sahni, and Sanguthevar Rajasekaran | Silicon Press
9. Computer Science: An Overview, 10th Edition | J. Glenn Brookshear | Addison Wesley
10. Computer Security: Art and Science | Matt Bishop | Addison Wesley
11. Configuration Management Principles and Practices | Anne Mette Jonassen Hass | Addison Wesley
12. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software | Erich Gamma et al | Addison Wesley
13. Discrete Mathematics and its Applications, 6th Edition | Kenneth Rosen | McGraw-Hill
14. Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond | Paul Clements et al | Addison Wesley
15. Engineering by Design, 2nd Edition | Gerard Voland | Prentice Hall
16. Executable UML: A Foundation for Model-Driven Architecture | Stephen J. Mellor and Marc J. Balcer | Addison Wesley
17. Fundamental of Obj ect-Oriented Design in UML, 2nd Edition | Meilir Page-Jones | Addison Wesley
18. Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge | CS Press 
19. IEEE-CS/ACM Joint Task Force on Software Engineering Ethics and Professional Practices | IEEE/ACM
20. Managing and Leading Software Projects | Richard E. Fairley | CS Press
21. Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering, 2nd Edition | Stephen H. Kan | Addison Wesley
22. Numerical Mathematics and Computing, 6th Edition | E. Ward Cheney and David R. Kincaid | Addison Wesley
23. Operating System Concepts, 8th Edition | Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, and Greg Gagne | Wiley
24. Professional Issues in Software Engineering | Frank Bott, Allison Coleman, Jack Eaton, and Diane Rowland | Taylor and Francis
25. Return on Software: Maximizing the Return on Your Software Investment | Steve Tockey | Addison Wesley
26. Security-Oriented Pointwise Changes to SWEBOK Guide | Samuel Redwine
27. Software Design, 2nd Edition | David Budgen | Addison Wesley
28. Software Engineering, 8th Edition | Ian Sommerville | Addison Wesley
29. Software Inspection | Tom Gilb and D. Graham | Addison Wesley
30. Software Maintenance: Concepts and Practice, 2nd Edition | Penny Grubb and Armstrong A. Takang | World Scientific Publishing
31. Software Security Engineering: A Guide for Project Managers | Julia H. Allen, Sean Barnum, Robert J. Ellison, Gary McGraw, and Nancy R. Mead | Addison Wesley
32. The Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture, 2nd Edition | Linda Null and Julia Lobur | Jones & Bartlett
33. The Road Map to Software Engineering: A Standards-Based Guide | James W. Moore | CS Press
34. Usability Engineering | Jakob Nielsen | Morgan Kaufmann

 

Hope you all the best,

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