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The Software Design Concentration prepares students for careers in the design and development of software applications and software infrastructure.

For software applications design and development, students obtain necessary skills and perspective for supervising and participating in all phases of software projects: architecture, high-level design, detailed design, documentation, implementation, testing, systems integration, and system maintenance.

These same phases are also important in developing software infrastructure, including software component libraries and other foundations for productive applications development.

Additional issues for software infrastructure include systematic classification of software library components, design of interfaces for interoperability, and assuring reliability and high performance even as existing components are redesigned for broader applicability.

Areas in which there is high demand for software applications designers include, among many others, simulation software, distributed systems, embedded systems, web technologies and protocols, and graphical user interfaces. Companies and organizations developing such applications are also increasingly recognizing the role of specialists in software infrastructure.