How to become a software engineer

The wide world of software engineering is full of potential right now. There are opportunities almost anywhere you look and sky-high demand for qualified candidates.

The explosion of new tech has led to investment in technology and high-paying roles. However, if you see yourself pursuing a career in software engineering, there are a few things that you should know first.

What is software engineering?

Software engineers are responsible for practically all stages of the software product lifecycle. They build, launch, and maintain operating systems, applications, and networks. However, engineers and developers are not the same things. Developers often maintain and update existing code while engineers are tasked with construction.

What roles do software engineers fill?

Software engineer is a very general term. Under the umbrella of the profession, you can find people focused on blockchain, security, data, back end, and more. Of course, some fields rise and fall with changes in technology, so there’s no need to think that each role is exclusive.

How much do software engineers make and where?

According to data from Indeed and Glassdoor, software engineering careers are one of the highest-paying tech jobs right now. The average salary in the United States is around $108,000 per year and the median base pay is about $89,000. Some of the top-paying positions include full-stack engineers, back end engineers, front end engineers, and Android engineers.

Now that you know what you can be making, where can you make it? That’s the tricky part. Many software engineering jobs call big cities home, and that often means inflated costs of living. However, that usually means a bit of extra cash to compensate. The top five hiring cities are San Francisco, San Jose, New York, Boston, and Seattle. As you’ll notice, five cities that are often at the forefront of technology in the US.

What skills do I need to become a software engineer?

Finally, the all-important question. A few essential programming languages to know are Python, Java, and C++. We’ve also found a bundle on Tech Deals that just might help you get started. It’s called Algorithms and Software Engineering for Professionals and it packs plenty of content to help you get started.

The learning kit packs nearly eight hours of beginner-friendly content to introduce you to algorithms and data structures. Algorithms and data structures are two of the most basic building blocks of a career in software engineering. You can explore fundamentals including the five types of algorithms, data structures, and recursion for starters.

Algorithms and data structures at a glance:

• Learn cryptography, compiler theory, signal processing, data analysis, and graph databases.
• Understand recursion and its relationship to concurrency and ADTs.
• Explore the relationship between trees and rotation operations used in balancing.
• Examine data structure and algorithms through practical examples.
• Discover parsing grammars with stacks and queues, and related tools like AST based parsers.

The retail value of the learning kit is $40, but you can save even more on Tech Deals right now. You can pick up all 101 lectures for just $17 and save 57%. Check out the deal for yourself via the widget below.

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