The Software Systems Development program provides software system developers with the skills needed to design, build, and test systems programs. Learn how to design, build, and test systems programs in C and C++ under the guidance of our dedicated faculty in the Department of Computer Science.

Program Highlights

When you earn your MS in software systems development at Tufts, you'll graduate with diverse and long-term options in the fast-growing industries of systems programming and engineering. Learn how to design, build, and test systems programs in C and C++ through a set of courses containing practical experience in all aspects of software development. Areas of study include: systems programming, program security, software development, systems engineering, and data management.

Choose between thesis and non-thesis degree options to best fit your career goals - the non-thesis program can be completed in as little as one year.

Career Outcomes

Systems programming is here to stay‚ a complex endeavor requiring human intervention, and it's unlikely to be replaced by artificial intelligence. At Tufts, dedicated professors in the Department of Computer Science will help you get ready for real-world practice at an accelerated rate. With your advanced degree, you'll feel confident managing projects and developing software systems for notable companies like Google and Microsoft.

The software development industry is booming, with a projected job growth of 22 percent in the United States within the next 10 years‚ much faster than the average occupation. As smartphones, tablets, and the applications that make programs accessible to the average consumer continue to integrate into our lives, the demand for software developers will increase.

Careers for graduates include:

Front-end developer
Mobile engineer
Game developer
Back-end developer
Application developer
Tools and enterprise software developer

Application Requirements

Prerequisites for the program include a bachelor's degree and either formal instruction of practical experience in software development, including programming in some high-level language such as Java, C, C++, C# or J#. For those students possessing high-level language experience in a language other than C or C++, Electrical Engineering 200 is recommended as a preparatory course in C.

Application Fee
Resume/CV
Personal Statement
Transcripts
Three letters of recommendation
Official GRE scores (if applicable)
- GRE General Test scores not required for applicants who will have received a degree from a U.S. or Canadian institution by time of enrollment. GRE scores required for all other applicants.
Official TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo test scores (if applicable)
Portfolio (optional)

Tuition and Financial Aid

We recognize that attending graduate school involves a significant financial investment. Our team is here to answer your questions about tuition rates and scholarship opportunities.

Please contact us at gradadmissions@tufts.edu.

Faculty

Alva Couch

Associate Professor

data science, software systems engineering, performance analysis, system, network, and data management

Samuel Guyer

Associate Professor

Programming languages, program analysis, software reliability, application security, runtime systems, memory management, domain-specific programming languages, compilers, compiler optimizations, program performance

Martin Allen

Associate Teaching Professor

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, reinforcement learning.

Remco Chang

Associate Professor

Data visualization, visual analytics, human-computer interaction, databases, computer graphics

Ming Chow

Associate Teaching Professor

cyber security, web engineering

Lenore Cowen

Professor

data science, graph algorithms, distributed algorithms, approximate routing, classification and clustering for high-dimensional data, coloring and its generalizations, computational molecular biology

Ethan Danahy

Research Associate Professor

design, implementation, and evaluation of different educational technologies

J.P. de Ruiter

Professor of Psychology and Computer Science

Cognition and Psycholinguistics

Fahad Dogar

Associate Professor

Improving performance and reliability of networked systems, specifically cloud-based systems, mobile and wireless systems, and the Internet. Also, interested in designing technologies for developing regions.

Karen Edwards

Assistant Teaching Professor

low-dimensional geometric topology

Jeffrey Foster

Professor and Chair of Computer Science

Programming languages, software engineering, security

Soha Hassoun

Professor

computational methods for systems biology and metabolic engineering, computer-aided design for integrated circuits

Bert Huang

Assistant Professor

Machine learning, structured output learning, algorithmic fairness, weak supervision, probabilistic inference, graph mining, social media analysis, data science, big data, computational social science.

Michael Hughes

Ann W. Lambertus and Peter Lambertus Assistant Professor

Machine learning : probabilistic models, Bayesian inference, variational methods, time-series analysis, semi-supervised learning Clinical informatics : electronic health record analysis

Robert Jacob

Professor

human-computer interaction, new interaction modes and techniques, implicit brain-computer interfaces, user interface software

Academic Leave

David Lillethun

Assistant Teaching Professor

computer science education, distributed systems, operating systems, networked systems, software development, secure systems and networking

Liping Liu

Assistant Professor

Data Science, Machine Learning, Bayesian Methods, Deep Learning, Graph

Noah Mendelsohn

Professor of the Practice

distributed systems, operating systems, World Wide Web

Megan Monroe

Associate Teaching Professor

data, visualization, language

Norman Ramsey

Associate Professor

Programming languages and systems; functional programming

Academic Leave

Raja Sambasivan

Ankur and Mari Sahu Assistant Professor

Cloud computing, evolvability, debugging distributed systems.

Matthias Scheutz

Karol Family Applied Technology Professor

Artificial intelligence, artificial life, cognitive modeling, foundations of cognitive science, human-robot interaction, multi-scale agent-based models, natural language understanding.

Mark Sheldon

Associate Teaching Professor

programming languages, software systems, concurrency, distributed information systems

Elaine Short

Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor

Algorithmic human-robot interaction for robust and socially appropriate assistance to human users, especially users with disabilities.

Jivko Sinapov

Assistant Professor

Artificial Intelligence, Developmental Robotics, Computational Perception, Robotic Manipulation, Machine Learning, Human-Robot and Human-Computer Interaction

Academic Leave