Software Development Engineer: A Comprehensive Guide for a Job Applicant
According to the HIRED State of Software Engineering report, the job demand for software development engineers has increased by 17 percent. Experts also revealed that this upward trend for software development engineer may continue to rise for at least three to five years.
While this career provides many opportunities– and not to mention, competitive salaries, the job market is also getting competitive. This is why it’s imperative to do your best to increase your chances of getting hired. Try to review different job applications. You may also check the average pay for software engineers.
In this post, we will provide some of the key pointers you should learn when applying for this job.
What exactly is a Software Development Engineer?
A software development engineer is an expert that applies computer science principles and mathematical analysis to design, develop, implement, and maintain computer applications and systems.
As one of these masterminds, you may decide to earn salaries as:
- An application engineer: focus on a specific application/program.
- A system engineer: deals with giant underlying systems and networks that power and trigger other programs.
What does a software development engineer do?
If you’re going to be an application software engineer, your career will revolve around designing computer or mobile applications, mainly for final consumers. So you’ll focus on understanding user needs, develop the best software products, monitor their performance, and modify them where necessary.
Is your interest in a system software engineering career? You’ll mostly be required to build software solutions for a company. The primary job is to operate resources like network distribution software, system-level software, and compilers.
Required Skills for this Type of Jobs
#1: Hard Skills
Our market researchers studied more than 0.5 million software development jobs posted over several years using real-time analysis software.
Findings: Most employers in the job market are looking to hire and pay people with several years of experience in:
• Linux
• HTML5
• CSS/CSS3
• REACT
• Node
• REST APIs
• Python
• Oracle
• DevOps
• Git
• Java
• SQL
• JavaScript
• C,C++. C#
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!
To learn these skills and boost your salary, get a 4 years’ Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering.
An average engineer usually has mastery in various areas, including:
- high-quality coding
- Design of front end and back end application features
- Development of responsive websites
- algorithms and data structures
- Writing design specifications and documents
#2: Soft Skills
Would you like to boost your pay and bargaining power in the job market? Consider transferrable skills. They complement the hard skills and help you become a highly sought-after team player in your new career.
The key soft skills to learn include:
• Teamwork
Software development engineers always find themselves teaming up with other programmers and developers in a project. Therefore, start exercising empathy, communication, and collaboration as early as now.
• Problem-solving skills
As a software development engineer, your noble task is to develop a solution to user’s problems. Do you like to find problems and try to figure out how to overcome them? This passion is a plus in this career. Also, be ready to strategically and patiently deal with possible bugs or issues in an existing code.
• Strategic and analytical
Apart from looking at the bigger picture, ensure you have a knack for analyzing smaller elements and steps. Software programs may demand a lot of thoughtful planning. However, if you can identify the quickest and most efficient route, the world of IT is yours to conquer.
• Intrinsic motivation
Let’s face it, trying to unravel the mysteries and problems in this industry can turn out to be tricky and tedious. So, are you ready to courageously perform a task and refuse to get bogged down until you get the solution? With enough self-motivation, everything else will fall right in place.
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!
Duties & Responsibilities
Our well-researched data revealed that the responsibilities of software engineers come in four key categories. Their interrelationship loosely forms a “Waterfall Model” process.
To increase your salary and pay, be sure to bag a few years of experience doing tasks in:
• Research and Analysis of Requirements
If tasked with a project, you’ll first need to research programmatic solutions and document possible technical methodologies. You’ll mostly have to begin the adventure without a roadmap.
For front-end engineers, the requirement may be about developing interfaces that can operate across multiple devices. For back-end engineers, it may be integrating an API into a tech stack.
• System designs
A back-end engineer is a brain behind the layout of the architectural underpinning. Every software needs this underpinning for it to come into life. On the other hand, a front-end engineer takes care of the program’s aspects that will face the users. So, your creative experience needs to kick in to drive powerful and new technologies.
• Implementation
Your new job will also entail deploying efficient code into the whole software infrastructure. In most cases. You’ll be earning a salary as one of the team members while working from a remote or physical location. In such cases, you’ll only be tasked with specific front-end and back-end elements of a given product. Therefore, make an effort to understand the implementation protocol to ensure the whole project becomes a success.
Support and maintenance
After real users have started interacting with your product, you’ll start getting feedback. It’s your task to perform continued iteration, patching, and support. Whenever users experience bugs, UX issues, and other errors, be ready to create, implement, and test new features and fixes.
Under this category, you’ll liaise with the QA people to support the software product from the design phase and beyond.
Where can a Software Development Engineer work?
A simple Google search will reveal a sea of job opportunities that require your software development skills and experience.
You’ll find companies and people in these and many other industries will pay you a competitive salary:
• Computer systems technology
• Manufacturing industry
• Finance and insurance
• Software publishers
• Engineering services
• Management of enterprise organizations.
While many engineers work with traditional companies’ offices, you can earn a salary and experience when you work in an agency setting. You can also be a freelance engineer, build products, and deliver them from any location over the internet. You’ll only meet your customers physically if needed. This option allows you to customize your career experience.
Salaries & Career Paths
Software engineers are hot cakes in today’s world, as more people and organizations continue to embrace technology and programming. The rising demand means more opportunities to pocket a generous pay. However, it’s always better to keep yourself updated with the average pay so you can set the right expectations.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary/pay for a software development engineer in Australia is currently AU$ 78.526. The lowest 10 % ‘average salaries are less than AU$57k, while the highest 10% average salaries are more than AU$112k. As a thumb of rule, the more job experience you get in the job market, the better the average pay.
Engineers can also increase their salaries and pay by branching into a narrower market or seeking a higher job title. Here are some of the most advertised positions:
Principal Software Engineer
• Senior Software Engineer
• Lead Software Development Engineer
• Front-end software developer
• Back-end software developer
• Full Stack developer
• Mobile application engineer
• Games software development engineer
• System, Tools, and Enterprise Engineer
• QA/Test/Automation work
• Algorithms software developers
• Embedded Programming Engineer
• OS and Linux Kernel software developers
• DevOps programming
• Cloud expert
• Compiler, language and other related fields
• Object-oriented programming
Conclusion
As a software development engineer, you’ll more likely find a job with an attractive salary in the job market. This lucrative career is location-independent. Whether you’re in Australia, the United States, or any other location, you will see many opportunities that can work out for you.
However, you may need several years of programming experience to create stellar solutions for people and companies. So, be sure to exercise an inner drive to acquire more skills.
Would you like to work with Laneways Software & Digital as a software development engineer? Over the years, we’ve turned many legacy company systems into cutting-edge technologies using modern resources. Contact us now for more about us!
Partner with a software development team one that's passionate about creating success
With the broadness of the internet, and it’s continuous expansions across different platforms it is hard to leave a mark that lasts. With digital marketing services, easily make a mark of your own that pulls customers in from different parts of the internet.
Jerome Rault
Partner with a software development team one that's passionate about creating success
With the broadness of the internet, and it’s continuous expansions across different platforms it is hard to leave a mark that lasts. With digital marketing services, easily make a mark of your own that pulls customers in from different parts of the internet.
