Becoming Certified: Choosing a Certification Level

The Certification Program offers the Associate Systems Engineering Professional (ASEP) that recognizes individuals who wish to be recognized as knowledgeable but without demonstrated SE experience. The qualification for the ASEP is possession of SE knowledge typical of a junior systems engineer, as evidenced by passing the knowledge exam.

The Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) recognizes systems engineering practitioners who have demonstrated knowledge and experience in many aspects of the discipline. The qualifications for this level include education, SE knowledge, and SE experience that serve various job profiles of an experienced, all-round systems engineer.

A CSEP should be capable of carrying out systems engineering tasks in many work situations based on the certified knowledge basis, which includes the insight to recognize domain and role specific practices within the overall context of the systems engineering discipline. Thus, the certified practitioner should be capable of practicing in a broad range of domains including military systems acquisition and development, commercial product engineering, and public infrastructure engineering.

The experience level recognized by the CSEP status is that of a self-sufficient individual who is capable of “finding his or her own way” to make a productive contribution in most work situations. The prevalent profile to which the CSEP is targeted is that of engineering or equivalent discipline graduates with several years of discipline experience (i.e. electrical, mechanical, software etc.) included within a minimum of five years of SE experience.