Software Systems Developer

Certificate Full-time School of Computing and Academic Studies

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“I was a newcomer to Canada, and BCIT helped me update my knowledge and gain confidence that I could work as a software developer after SSD.”

Farideh Lamee, Software Developer at Ballard Power Systems

“SSD is the ultimate deep dive if you’re looking to pursue a career in software development. You’ll be walking away with industry-standard skills that are very desirable. I immediately found a job post-graduation and have since been promoted. BCIT was one of the best choices I’ve ever made!”

Albert Kozak, Solutions Engineer at StoryTap

“BCIT allowed me to make a quick career change while providing me with the tools and guidance to learn all the hands-on skills necessary for my field.”

Stella Kagrimanyan, Software Development Engineer in Test at Global Relay Communications Inc.

Overview

The Software Systems Developer program features an accelerated, project-based learning environment to prepare you for a career in full-stack web development.

This 31-week program will provide you with a strong foundation in multiple emerging web,mobile application and software development tools and technologies. Students will acquire hands-on experience through lecture and lab exercises combined with applied knowledge through internal and industry projects.

Industry-recognized technologies

Our curriculum provides a comprehensive foundation in the following technologies to equip you for a job as a software developer:

HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Angular, React, Vue
SQL and NoSQL
NodeJS
.NET
Amazon Web Services and Azure
DevOps and Containerization
Android
React-Native
Integration with third-party hosting, security, API, and tooling providers

*subject to change without notice, based on the needs of the program and industry demand

What our grads can do

As a Software Systems Developer graduate, you’ll be able to:

Design, build, and manage relationally sound databases.
Use dynamic programming languages such as JavaScript and JavaScript frameworks for efficient manipulation of HTML, CSS, and data.
Develop well-structured object-oriented programs with C#
Develop data-driven applications with C# and ASP.NET.
Develop websites that manage user profiles, data, and resources in a secure manner for site users and owners.
Develop mobile applications with cross-platform compatible frameworks.

Learn more about program goals and how this program prepares you for a career in software development on the Program Details page.

*Graduates of this certificate program may apply for acceptance into the BCIT Bachelor of Technology in Computer Systems (additional prerequisites are required). Laddering into the Computer Systems Technology Diploma program is not an option.

While applicants are not required to have formal computer programming experience, they need to have a solid understanding of object-oriented programming. Applicants with insufficient knowledge in object-oriented programming are advised to take a programming language course, such as introduction to object-oriented programming with any server-side language.

BCIT Credential:	Certificate
Program Location:	Downtown Vancouver
Program Length:	31 weeks, full-time
Program Start / End:	September 11, 2023 – May 9, 2024

Entrance Requirements

Application processing

Open to applications beginning October 1st (or next business day).

Entrance requirements

This program has a two-step admission process. Applicants must meet all entrance requirements and will be accepted on a first qualified basis as long as space remains.

Step 1: Pre-entry assessment

Applicants are required to complete the Pre-entry Assessment form [PDF] to review their prior experience and how they meet the entrance requirements.

Please email your completed assessment form to TPP@bcit.ca.

An approved pre-entry assessment form must be uploaded to complete your application.

Step 2: Meet the following entrance requirements

English: two years of education in English in an English-speaking country with one of the following:
- English Studies 12 (50%) or
- English First Peoples 12 (50%) or
- Acceptable equivalent high school course or
- 3.0 credits of post-secondary English, humanities or social sciences (50%) from a recognized institution
Programming: one of the following (or equivalent):
- COMP 1516 - Programming Fundamentals with Python (70%) or
- 3.0 credits of post-secondary object-oriented programming from a recognized institution (70%) or
- Significant Code Project or other experience

International applicants

This program is available to international applicants. A valid study permit is required prior to starting the program.

Apply to program

To submit your application:

Include proof of meeting all entrance requirements.
Convert all transcripts and supporting documents to PDF files.
Have a credit card ready to pay the application fee.

Apply Now

Learn more about how to apply

Scheduled Intakes

September each year.

Please see the program overview for precise dates.

Costs & Supplies

Tuition fees

Please see the Full-Time Tuition & Fees pages for tuition fee amounts:

Financial assistance

Financial assistance may be available for this program. For more information, please contact Student Financial Aid and Awards.

If eligible, female students can apply for the $1000 Debbe Gervin Memorial Entrance Award.

Refund policy

If notice is submitted in writing and received by the SSD Program Office AT LEAST twelve (12) working days prior to the first day of classes, all tuition fees paid (less the $2,000.00 deposit) will be refunded.
If notice is submitted in writing and received by the SSD Program Office by 4:00 p.m. on the second day of class, all fees paid less $3,000.00 ($2,000.00 deposit and $1,000.00 penalty fee) will be refunded.
There will be no refund of fees issued after the second day of class.
Withdrawal for medical reasons, possible partial refund with doctor's medical note.

Cancellation Policy

This program is subject to limited and minimum enrolment. Lack of sufficient enrolment will result in BCIT cancelling specific intakes of the program and will entitle accepted students of that intake to a full refund of all fees paid.

Courses

Class hours

9:00 am to 4:00 pm, Monday - Friday (excluding statutory holidays)

Program matrix

Required Courses:			Credits
	SSDP 0055	Team Professionalism Workshops This course series promotes team success through a focus on effective verbal communication, acknowledgement of diversity, respect for others, conflict resolution techniques and stress reduction techniques. Team success skills are practised through discussion, case studies and role play activities. The series also promotes professionalism in presentations for explaining or sharing ideas with other teammates or for promotional pitches to project hosts. Presentation activities include a team presentation with slides for practice. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline
	SSDP 0056	Career Professionalism Workshops This course series emphasizes professional career-focused communication and personal presentation necessary for professional job search. Course content includes how to construct an effective technical resume, compose a cover letter, develop digital profiles, prepare for the technical job interview and manage career goals over the long-term. Activities include composing a technical resume, practising mock job interviews and receiving constructive feedback. Guest speakers from industry attend to share their insights, and provide recommendations for pursuing career success. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline
	SSDP 1100	Front-End Web Development Essentials Students will learn the basics of front-end web development, code management, and the tools of web design. Course topics and activities include a review of the web in general, how it works from the internet layer to the application layer, and how to create basic multi-page web sites. Students will understand the importance of writing modern, standards compliant, and semantic HTML using the latest web standards. Web-page design and layout is introduced through the introduction of CSS, the design language of the web. Students will develop web layouts that work on mobile, tablet and desktop clients by utilizing responsive web development techniques. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	3.0
	SSDP 1505	Software Systems Relational Database Development In SSDP 1505, students learn and apply industry-standard development structures and methods for relational database design and development. The course first emphasizes structure and schema creation to ensure data accuracy and integrity. Then implementation of relational structures and management are examined through extensive coverage of Structured Query Language (SQL) for creating, reading, updating, and deleting data. A wide range of queries for joining, grouping, and aggregating data are practiced. Database objects studied also include stored procedures, views, functions, triggers, and cursors. Permissions and access management through the users and roles are examined. Common concurrency configurations are also studied. Upon successful completion, participants are able to design and build complete databases which can be integrated into other software systems. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	3.0
	SSDP 2000	JavaScript Fundamentals This course examines client-side JavaScript fundamentals for developing dynamic interactive HTML/CSS-based applications. Course content examines JavaScript basics for implementing logic with basic structures such as variables, functions, loops, collections, and objects. The course also requires practice in DOM manipulation, event handling, callback functions, and simple animations. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	3.0
	SSDP 2505	Object-Oriented Development: with .NET In this course, students who have completed the program entry prerequisite are exposed to the fundamental programming structures of the main coding language(s) to be used within the Software Systems Developer program. Topics of this course include code environment setup, debugging, data structures, fundamental programming structures, string manipulation, and collections. Object-oriented content includes an in-depth focus on polymorphism, namespaces, access modifiers, virtual and abstract inheritance, generic types, interfaces, structs, delegates, anonymous functions, events, and call backs. Course content also focuses on object-relational mapping for creating, reading, updating, and deleting database content through code. Both code-first and database-first alternatives are examined for database implementations with exercises and projects. Labs and exercises focus on writing code for projects, assignments, and activities. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	4.0
	SSDP 2600	Software Systems Analysis and Design This course introduces a foundation in systems analysis and design and for agile project management techniques that are commonly used by software developers. The range of topics discussed and practised include application design, Unified Modelling Language (UML) and Agile management. Beginning with an introduction to the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), students work in teams to define the scope of the problem being solved, analyze existing processes, gather requirements and supporting materials, and create logical design to model the solution. Participants are involved with initiating and managing the project in teams. Traditional modelling and Unified Modelling Language (UML) are used for design notation. Agile frameworks such as Scrum are also introduced and practised. Participants work in groups, to provide detailed written materials and design documentation. Teams will present their system designs to the class. Upon completion, successful students will be able to use collaborative tools and common methods for analyzing, designing, documenting, communicating, presenting and implementing software solutions within teams. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	3.0
	SSDP 2800	React Essentials This course introduces current mainstream JavaScript frameworks for developing modularized single-page applications. Content focuses on the benefits of the automation of features. Participants first learn development fundamentals and then practise building components, modules, and services for data-driven, client-side web applications. Exercises also include routing, asynchronous JSON transfer, and validation. Automated testing is introduced as well. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	1.5
	SSDP 2850	Web Development Tools and Techniques Students will develop an understanding of web development processes as part of a team of developers and project stakeholders. Modern HTML and CSS technologies that allow for the creation of advanced responsive layouts and animated user interfaces will be explored. Students will discuss and practise sharing and version-controlling code with a team of developers, automating web development tasks using task runners and improving CSS development using the latest CSS pre-processors. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	4.0
	SSDP 2900	Angular and Vue.js This course provides further practice and development perspective for skills covered in SSDP 2800 React Essentials but with competing frameworks. Content focuses on the benefits of the automation of features. Participants first learn development fundamentals and then practise building components, modules, and services for data-driven, client-side web applications. Exercises also include routing, asynchronous JSON transfer, validation, and automated testing. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	3.0
	SSDP 3100	Node.js Web Development This course focuses on using Node.js to develop MVC and API applications using both relational and unstructured NoSQL databases. The course begins with examining how to use the Node.js tool chain and then focuses on the Node.js programming model. Web frameworks for scaffolding and testing with Node.js are examined. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	3.0
	SSDP 3200	MVC and API Frameworks This course focuses on the back-end web development of applications which serve HTML and JSON through MVC and API frameworks. Web applications built during the course manage content in relational databases. Topics include development patterns, user session management, server and client-side validation, scaffolding for development automation, code testing, and interacting with separate client applications. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	4.0
	SSDP 3300	Software Systems Projects This hands-on course builds upon SSDP2600 Software Systems Analysis and Design. The course starts with a review of the agile process. Then, students practise how to implement primary agile methods within the Scrum framework. Course work emphasizes team communication within a project setting while maintaining collaborative, coherent, flexible and realistic designs during development. The project activity encourages research, complex problem solving, professional judgment and decision-making, active learning and monitoring of team performance. Techniques and tools for gathering and responding to feedback, managing project timelines, and source code are also practised. Students will present their designs to the class at the end of the course. Detailed written materials, technical designs and source code will also be submitted at the end of the course to complete the project. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	4.0
	SSDP 3700	Advanced Back-End Web Development This course builds upon SSDP 3200 MVC and API frameworks to focus on additional integration of back-end services with third-party clients and cloud services. Study and practice also emphasize role-based user management. Web application security against common application threats are examined, and techniques for preventing attacks, theft and vandalism are practised. To assist with learning, course activities include code attacks on classroom-hosted web applications. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	3.0
	SSDP 3800	Mobile Software Development Lessons, labs, and practical assignments in this course examine cross-platform-enabled frameworks for developing mobile and tablet applications. The course will focus mainly on Android deployments but will address platform-neutral code, as well. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	4.0
	SSDP 3900	DevOps and Containerization This hands-on course was designed for web application developers with coding experience in a variety of web-programming environments. The course begins with a brief history of virtualization technologies, followed by an introduction to containerization technologies. Docker architecture is discussed, along with ways to simplify the software delivery process using containers. Students build custom images by pulling and pushing images from the Docker registry and setting up automated pipelines to build custom images directly from source control systems like GitHub. Topics include DevOps enablement by Docker, Docker Swarm orchestration engine, networking containers, and data persistence using volumes. Enabling microservices architecture using containers and cloud providers' support for containerization technologies are also discussed. Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to use Docker to package applications for accelerated development and deployment to help enable software delivery at a faster pace. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	1.5
	SSDP 4300	Cloud Application Development Students with experience creating full-stack web applications will learn how to deploy those applications to the cloud. Students will learn how to utilize a cloud platform to deploy their web applications. Students will also learn how to create serverless applications. Students will learn how to utilize modern cloud services to create and deploy serverless applications that are fully scalable without managing servers. Topics include: serverless architecture, serverless functions, serverless databases, user authentication and authorization, object storage, infrastructure as code, virtual machines, cloud-native databases, object storage, custom domain names, and horizontal scaling. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	5.0
	SSDP 4400	Industry Project The industry project allows students to develop and manage projects within the guidelines specified by faculty. The projects are drawn from a variety of sources, especially from industry situations. While most work is usually completed in the BCIT lab, project work requires regular contact with the project host, who is usually within the business community. Students work in teams and seek advice from a faculty member acting as their project supervisor. The project requires practice of critical thinking, active listening to properly manage requirements and expectations, research, complex problem solving, professional judgment and decision-making, and performance monitoring. At the end of the course, students will present their industry solutions to the class in addition to submitting written project documentation, designs and source code. Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites are required for this course. course outline	5.0

Total Credits:			54.0

Transfer credit

Do you have credits from another BC/Yukon post-secondary school? Do you want to know if they transfer to courses here at BCIT? Check out BCIT's Transfer Equivalency Database to find out.

Program Details

Program goals

Upon successful completion of SSD, students will be able to:

Apply basic agile management methods in systems analysis, design, and management.
Work effectively in teams with project stakeholders for requirements gathering.
Effectively troubleshoot and project manage the software development cycle.
Communicate and present information effectively in a variety of industry settings.
Develop suitable design models using entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, wireframes and prototyping.
Create efficient mobile responsive layouts using HTML, CSS, and SASS.
Create pleasing, easy-to-use, cross-browser compatible, and device-responsive interfaces for web applications.
Use with proficiency a database programming language such as SQL for database creation, management, and manipulation.
Combine server and client-side scripting techniques effectively.
Write code using MVC and component-based development patterns.
Conduct basic “unit” and “end to end software” testing methods.
Integrate NoSQL databases in applications.
Develop standard mobile applications for iOS and Android with the foundation needed to also research and develop advanced features.
Select and use code frameworks for productivity, safety, and reliability.
Manage code in teams using source sharing software.

Program length

31 weeks, full-time

Program delivery

In person: This program is delivered on campus.

Program location

BCIT Downtown Campus
555 Seymour Street
Vancouver, BC

Graduating & Jobs

Job Opportunities

Graduates will find careers in a variety of industries including business, finance, government, health, information technology, telecommunications and service.

Depending on previous academic and work experience, career paths for graduates may include but are not limited to: web application developer, database developer, programmer/analyst, systems analyst, and careers in quality assurance.

Graduate employment outcomes

The BCIT student outcomes report presents summary findings from the annual survey of former students administered by BC Stats one to two years after graduation. These reports combine the last three years of available results for the 2020-2022 BCIT Outcomes Surveys of 2019-2021 graduates and for Degree 2017-2019 graduates. The reports are organized into three-page summaries containing information on graduates’ labour market experiences and opinions regarding their education. More detailed information can be accessed at the BC Student Outcomes website.

To view these results, you may need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in your Web browser.

Software Systems Developer

Faculty, Advisors & Staff

Faculty

Craig Watson, SSD Program Head

Josh Solomon, SSD Faculty

Staff

Bal Lidhar, Program Coordinator

Advisory committee

BCIT is well-respected by employers for its ties to industry. In Computing, this connection is formalized through a Program Advisory Committee (PAC) comprised of experts in a range of roles from a cross-section of companies. The department consults regularly to ensure program currency and relevance.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this program, please send us an email.

You can also use the form below to make contact with our department, or other applicable departments at BCIT.

Campus info, map, and directions

Questions or comments?

Programs and courses are subject to change without notice.