A New Pathway To Tech: Software Engineering Program

Collaboration with Amazon Opens New Pathway to Tech Careers

The Software Engineering with Java/AWS Specialization program is designed for highly motivated adults who want to acquire the necessary skills to build software applications and establish a new career in tech as a junior software engineer at employers like Amazon and other enterprise companies. 

We launched this program in the summer of 2022 in collaboration with Amazon. It is a nine-month, full-time deep dive into designing, building, testing, and deploying the server-side of large-scale enterprise applications. Building the server-side of applications intended to scale and perform at enterprise or global scale (whether on a cloud platform or otherwise) requires an understanding of key computer science concepts, specialized practical software engineering skills, and a different range of technologies than the typical full-stack software engineer or web developer. Software Engineering with Java/AWS Specialization is designed to target that more specialized segment of the software engineering talent market.

The curriculum we are basing our program on was originally developed by Amazon engineers for a program called the Amazon Technical Academy. Amazon Technical Academy is an internal upskilling program designed to allow Amazon employees, including distribution center workers, with no prior technical training, to upskill to a level where they can be hired as a junior software engineer (called an SDE1 at Amazon). Before this program, only college graduates with a Computer Science degree could qualify for an SDE1 role. 

A New Pathway For Beginners And Those Looking To Upskill

While no prior programming experience is required, we are rolling out a number of ways to gain the coding skills required for success in the Software Engineering program. These prework options combine self-study, mentoring and instructor-led pathways to learning introductory programming concepts for those new to tech, like the Software Engineering Jumpstart. 

The Software Engineering with Java/AWS Specialization program is also well suited for those who already have programming skills, up to and including graduates of computer science or computer information systems programs, or coding bootcamps, who feel they need more skills to really seize top-tier software engineering jobs. 

Students enrolled in the Software Engineering program at NSS will learn the following skills (a more complete list of the skills and tools is shown on the program page for the class on the NSS website):

• A broad introduction to applied computer science concepts, including algorithms and data structures, object-oriented programming, concurrent programming
• Hands-on use of real-world software engineering tools and practices such as source code control using Git/GitHub, Agile development methods, testing and debugging, team-based projects, cloud computing platforms
• Practice building and deploying cloud-native backend applications using tools such as Java, Amazon’s market leading AWS cloud platform, DynamoDB, etc.
• The program also includes - as do all NSS programs - a comprehensive career development track that prepares students for their job search and for intensive technical interviews. Students will work with NSS’ career development team so they are prepared to succeed in the job search after graduation.

Software Engineering with Java/AWS Specialization is open for applications now. Learn more and apply.