7 Software Development Industry Career Options
If you’re reading this, perhaps you already have the technical background and programming skills to develop computer systems, but then find it difficult to choose a career path.
According to the research conducted by Leftronic, 90% of the world’s data was generated within the last two years alone. This development only proves to us that technology won’t stop growing. And it has created all kinds of opportunities for software developers around the world.
What type of industry is software development?
Software development belongs to an industry that consists of a wide range of companies that develop, maintain, and publish software. Users acquire this software in various ways. Either they’re provided with licenses to use the software without violating copyrights, or they can access it through shared computing resources via the internet.
Software development is part of this sector that involves identification, planning, designing, testing, and maintenance of software for public use.
Hot Career Options to Look out for in 2021
- The number of people employed in the software industry has been growing exponentially over the last five years. There are about 23.9 million software developers worldwide in 2019 with nearly 4.2 million in North America alone. Silicon Valley, one of the regions notably famous for the number of tech companies headquartered there, including Facebook, Google, Apple, and Adobe, has nearly 41,490 software developers.
- This business is quite lucrative too. The average software developer in the US makes around $106,816 annually.
- With many companies and organizations mass migrating to the internet, software market is growing fast which opens up countless career opportunities for many software engineers.
Cybersecurity Analyst -Data Protection Experts
Also known as information security analysts, these are the guys tasked with protecting the company or organization’s computer networks and fixing new security flaws in the operating system. They utilize new technologies such as context-behavioral analytics, next-generation breach detection, smart grid technologies, SAML, etc.
- Market Demand
With the Covid 19 outbreak, businesses today are adopting new technologies to stay on par with the competition. As a result, hackers have become even more ruthless by going after new unprotected businesses when thousands of employees are shifting to remote working. According to a recent news report, new trends of brute-force attacks were up by 400% during the pandemic. This makes information security one of the most important fields there is.
According to the US Bureau of labor statistics, there were about 131,000 job openings in 2019 in the US alone. This number is projected to grow 31% by 2029, a rate much higher than the average for all other occupations.
- Median Annual Salary
The average cybersecurity analyst makes about $ 92,665 a year
Data Scientist - Information Specialist
This is a professional responsible for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting large amounts of data. An information specialist takes advantage of new software developments like predictive analytics, stream analytics, NoSQL databases, and distributed file stores.
- Market Demand
As more and more business industries grow, competition for the same market has become stiff. Companies find the need to study their customers better so they can predict their needs more accurately. And with the progressive development of technologies, data scientists have become increasingly in demand. Businesses hire teams of these experts to mine through large quantities of data to obtain information that could be useful for predicting customer behavior and figuring new development trends.
- Median Annual Salary
An extremely valuable career, an average data scientist makes around $ 113,309 annually, according to Glassdoor.
We build custom software with modern solutions in mind for any business and sizes!
We build custom software with modern solutions in mind for any business and sizes!
Cloud Engineer - Cloud Maintenance Professional
A cloud engineer is a professional that handles cloud computing. 86% of enterprises have over a quarter of their IT infrastructure running in cloud environments. The cybersecurity market is also in demand for cloud computing technology.
- Market Demand
- Estimated Annual Salary
Estimated Annual Salary: The average cloud engineer, according to salary.com can make up to nearly $122,444 a year.
Mobile developer - Applications Designer
A mobile developer is a tech professional that specializes in software designs and development trends for mobile devices.
- Market Demand
With the rapid advancement in technology, there is a race to make tech appliances portable. It seems the popular belief in the tech world is that everything is better when smaller.
You have to admit that being able to carry your computer around is very convenient. You can practically carry your office around that way.
With 14 billion mobile devices in the world today and a whopping $50 billion global mobile app industry as of 2020, we can say that mobile development is a very highly sought-after skill in the market. Laneways Software & Digital is one of the few known development companies that engineer software for mobile devices.
- Estimated Annual Salary
A mobile developer can make as high as an annual income of $144,000.
We build custom software with modern solutions in mind for any business and sizes!
We build custom software with modern solutions in mind for any business and sizes!
Web developer - Internet Applications Expert
A web developer is a programmer that specializes in the development of website applications.
- Market Demand
There are all kinds of employment opportunities for web developers, from small companies to large corporations, to governments to freelance work. Each of these presents a unique employment opportunity, like designers, producers, user experience designers, software architects, database administrators—the list is endless.
This is perhaps the most popular field in this sector that companies are even willing to hire a site developer on just the merit of knowing a few programming languages. This is because the rest can be learned on the job through practice.
There are almost as many website developers as there are software developers in general today.
- Median Annual Salary
Web developers make close to $60,000 annually.
Machine Learning Engineer - Artificial Intelligence Automation Architect
These folks are tasked with teaching computers how to self supervise.
Sounds crazy, right?
- Market Demand
It’s true. Machine learning engineers are responsible for developing programs and algorithms that enable computers to operate without being directed.
They take advantage of models created by data scientists and use them to teach computers human behavior. This is the basis of automation and artificial intelligence.
This field of software development is the fastest-growing of its kind.
- Estimated Annual Salary
The average machine learning engineer makes approximately $146,085—that’s 344% increase since 2015. This, according to indeed.com is the best job in the US today.
Full-Stack Developer - Back End and Front End Programming Expert
A full-stack developer is what we like to call a one-stop software specialist.
- Market Demand
Web developers are usually classified into two: front-end developers and back-end developers. The former creates everything that the client sees and interacts with on their browser or app. The latter deals with behind the scenes activity, like servers and databases.
A full-stack developer is a jack of both these trades and also a master of programming languages. This puts them in higher demand than their counterpart web developers.
- Estimated Annual Salary
A full-stack developer makes over $90,000 annually.
How Big Is the Software Development Industry?
With a nearly 4 trillion dollar industry, there is software operating in almost every machine in existence today. There’s an estimate of over 100,000 software companies today, according to Jay McBain. That’s up from 10,000 companies only 10 years ago. He estimates there will be a million software companies by 2027.
The US takes up the lead position, with about 4.2 million professional software developers. However, projections show that by 2023, India will have overtaken the US. This makes this industry the fastest-growing CAGR in history.
Conclusion
With the world only becoming more digital and many jobs become obsolete, the software company continues to accelerate. And you know what they say if you can’t beat them, join them.
Which of these career options would you like to try? Do leave us a comment. And if you found this information helpful, hit the share button.
Jerome Rault
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