Becoming a software developer is a very lucrative career in the tech industry. With the unemployment rate of just 2.5%, software developers are much needed in the tech industry due to the variety of skills they bring to the table.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, software developers will see a growth of 20% between 2019 and 2025, with more than 190.000 new job openings.
According to the same statistics, there are more than 400.000 computer science students and more than 1.4 million computing jobs available as of now.
So becoming a software developer with a college degree is something that can very much become a reality for you.
But what does it take to become a software developer? Stick around as we are going to tell you all about it.
1. Understand what you want and commit to it
Firstly, you need to understand that you truly want to become a software developer. The road ahead might be harder than firstly expected, but you have to commit to it none the less. Having your mind set on something else might slow your progress and ultimately, make your change your mind altogether.
2. Choose a language to learn
The greatest obstacle that faces a person when transitioning from one tech field to another is what language to learn. As a software developer, you can get stuck in deciding what language and framework to lean. But the fundamental to understanding software development is that you must learn how to learn. If you decide on this career, your salary will be one of the highest in the tech industry. Statistics show that software developers make on average more than $100.000 annually. In some states, the salaries are higher than in others and some companies also pay their employees more than others. But none the less, you must continuously upgrade on your skills in order to achieve such numbers.
3. Practice, and then practice some more
Spending valuable time towards perfecting your new craft is the single most important thing you can do to help yourself become a software developer. As they say, practice makes perfect, and the case is no different in the tech industry. You can’t spend 10 hours coding in Ruby and expect to understand everything. Quite the contrary, it takes far more time to understand everything about it.
4. Use tools that the pros use
The road to becoming a software developer is a hard one filled with many obstacles. Take the time to reflect on what professional software developers use in order to make it easy for yourself. While free sources like Codeademy are great, they are not a true reflection of your environment. Professional software devs use tools such as Git and GitHub, they work on their own terminals, they work on group projects and many more.
5. Read other people’s code
We mentioned GitHub for a reason. It allows you to see what other people’s code is. Learning how to read another person’s line of code can very much benefit you in the long run. It gives you a different perspective on what’s going on and remember, the source code never lies. Having to ability to read and understand other people’s code is a skill that is very much appreciated in the tech industry, and one that will serve you a lot in the future.
