A role-based qualification and certification program for software architects: an experience report from Siemens

In this experience report, we describe the motivation, experience, lessons learned, and future directions of a software engineering curriculum used at a large international company. The "Curriculum for Software Engineers" project, which developed the content and a role-based qualification and certification program, was started at Siemens in 2006. This paper includes an overview of various kinds of certification in the software engineering area and why we chose the knowledge- and experience-based type of certification. The experience report part focuses mainly on the "certified senior software architect" role, as this role has the longest history and participants from many different business units and countries.