Build Automation for DevOps & QA Certificate of Achievement

The program of study for the certificate in Build Automation for DevOps & QA will give students a solid grounding in the automation of software quality assurance testing (QA), as well as systems to build and release software. Students will learn the fundamentals of working in a Linux environment, writing shell scripts and automation scripts using Ruby or Python, and Software Engineering principles. This course of study prepares students for entry-level positions in DevOps, Software QA and/or Build and Release Automation.

We estimate that 10 students will complete this certificate annually in the first few years.

Upon completion of this program, students will be able to:

• Write Unix/Linux commands to manipulate the contents and permissions of files and directories.
• Analyze common text processing and system tasks and interpret technical specifications to create object-oriented algorithmic solutions that use common control and data structures.
• Implement and test software thoroughly and methodically in a team environment.
• Implement and run continuous integration tests and regression tests to verify specific functionalities in a repository.
• Manage version tags and branches to build specific software versions.

This certificate program requires 13-14 units and can be completed in two semesters.

Course	Units	Year / Sem
Required courses:
CS 160A - Introduction to Unix/Linux	2.00	Sem. 1
CS 160B - Unix/Linux Shell Scripting	2.00	Sem. 1
CS 177 - Software Engineering	3.00	Sem. 2
CS 178 - Build Automation for DevOps & QA	3.00	Sem. 2
Total:	10.00
Choose one of the following courses:
CS 131B - Programming Fundamentals: Python	4.00	Sem. 1
CS 132A - Ruby Programming	3.00	Sem. 1
CNIT 133 - JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX	3.00	Sem. 1
Total:	3.00 - 4.00
Total:	13.00 - 14.00

Students completing this certificate program will be more qualified for entry-level QA engineer positions.

The following colleges in the area have similar programs. Similarities/differences are noted in parentheses. For this particular certificate, the CCSF Computer Science Department believes there is sufficient job demand for devops/QA engineers that this certificate would be warranted even if it did not have so many distinctions from other similar programs. College of San Mateo has a program called DevOps. However, this program's curriculum has less coverage of general software engineering practices. As our program includes CS 177 (Software Engineering), our students will leave our program with a good understanding of how to effectively build software as a team. Las Positas College has a program called Cloud Computing. A core part of our program is teaching students how to automate necessary software development tasks. This element of automation is missing from Las Positas's program.