IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate Course Syllabus

This comprehensive professional certificate program is designed to equip learners with foundational and advanced DevOps and software engineering skills through hands-on projects and real-world applications. The course spans approximately 6–8 months of part-time study, with each module building practical expertise in CI/CD, cloud platforms, automation, security, and modern development workflows. Learners will engage in interactive labs, automated pipeline setups, and infrastructure-as-code deployments across major cloud providers, culminating in a capstone project that integrates all acquired skills. Lifetime access allows flexible, self-paced learning.

Module 1: Introduction to DevOps & Agile Software Development

Estimated time: 20 hours

• Understand DevOps culture, principles, and benefits in modern software development
• Explore agile methodologies including Scrum and Kanban
• Learn the role of collaboration and continuous improvement in DevOps
• Introduction to version control with Git and GitHub for team-based coding

Module 2: Continuous Integration & Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)

Estimated time: 30 hours

• Build automated CI/CD pipelines for faster software delivery
• Use Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and GitLab CI/CD for pipeline automation
• Implement test-driven development (TDD) and automated testing practices
• Integrate code quality checks and feedback loops into pipelines

Module 3: Cloud Computing & Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Estimated time: 40 hours

• Learn AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud fundamentals for DevOps workflows
• Automate infrastructure provisioning using Terraform and Ansible
• Containerize applications using Docker for consistent environments
• Orchestrate containers with Kubernetes for scalable deployments

Module 4: Monitoring, Security, & Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)

Estimated time: 50 hours

• Implement logging and monitoring with tools like Prometheus and ELK Stack
• Apply DevSecOps best practices to integrate security into CI/CD pipelines
• Understand incident management, root cause analysis, and postmortems
• Learn SRE principles including SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets

Module 5: Microservices & Cloud-Native Architecture

Estimated time: 35 hours

• Design and deploy microservices-based applications
• Understand cloud-native patterns and service communication
• Use API gateways and service meshes for scalable architectures
• Incorporate agile and DevOps practices into microservices workflows

Module 6: Final Project

Estimated time: 60 hours

• Deploy a full-stack application using DevOps methodologies
• Set up a complete CI/CD pipeline with automated testing and deployment
• Configure cloud infrastructure using IaC tools and implement monitoring and security

Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of programming concepts and scripting (Python, Bash)
• Familiarity with command-line interface and Linux environment
• Access to a computer with internet for cloud platform labs

What You'll Be Able to Do After

• Design and implement CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and GitLab CI/CD
• Automate cloud infrastructure provisioning with Terraform and Ansible
• Deploy and manage containerized applications using Docker and Kubernetes
• Integrate security best practices into DevOps workflows (DevSecOps)
• Apply monitoring, logging, and SRE principles to ensure system reliability