How to Become a Software Developer in 2022

What does a Software Developer do?

Software developers are creative minds behind software programs. A software developer has the responsibility to develop, design, and implement new or modified software products or ongoing business projects. As a software developer, you’re involved in liaising with business analysts and development managers to ensure software projects meet requirements. Your role is to create applications that allow people to do specific tasks on computers or mobile. After delivering the final software system, you will also help with performing maintenance and upgrades to ensure that all security problems are fixed, and it operates with new databases.

What skills do you need to become a Software Developer?

Computers have over the last several years become an integral part of our lives, making software developers just as important. The IT industry will continue to hire even more developers in the future to keep up with the ever-growing world of computers and technology. The following are skills you will need to possess to become a great software engineer:

• Problem solving and logical thinking skills: Software problems can arise from even the smallest errors, and programmers spend most of their time debugging rather than writing code. It is for this reason why problem-solving and logical thinking skills are said to be crucial.
• Computer programming and coding: Software development requires computer programming and coding skills so you can build or improve the software. You should be comfortable with several programming languages and operating systems and keep evolving with them.
• Have organizational and time management skills: It is important to continue improving both your organizational and time management skills to better manage your individual time and projects. This job is very demanding from having to deal with stakeholders to your boss.
• Mathematical aptitude: Software development requires algorithmic work and solving complex problems with theoretical graphs. This means a strong background in mathematic to perform well as a programmer.
• Teamwork Skills: As a software developer, you will require team and interpersonal skills to effectively communicate with your team.
• Have an understanding of the latest trends and their role in a commercial environment: It is important to understand where you fit inside a business, what skills you need to improve, and the trends that you will be need to keep thriving in the future.

What are the responsibilities of a Software Developer?

• Researching, designing, implementing, and managing software programs
• Writing and testing out efficient codes
• Working closely with other computer specialists to create optimum software
• Documenting every aspect of an application or system as a reference for future maintenance and upgrades
• Recommending software upgrades for customers’ existing programs and systems
• Creating a variety of models and diagrams that show programmers the software code needed for an application

A day in the life of a Software Developer

The major role of a software developer is to code which shouldn’t come as a surprise since it’s the main scope of software development. As a software developer, you start your day by first check emails and dealing with urgent ones. You then check error logs to make sure there are no issues, arrange a variety of to-do lists, and organize meetings. You will then attend stand up meetings, coordinate the day ahead, and organize collaborations. From there you jump into coding, problem-solving, and development. Throughout the day, you will interact with team members online or physically to work out solutions and give each other advice. You will be required to elaborate on how to approach the issue when launching a new project. A software developer’s day is a problem-solving one- addressing problems and finding solutions working as a team.

Career prospects and job outlook for a Software Developer

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in this field will grow by a significant 22% from 2019 to 2029, which is much faster than the average of all occupations. Software developers are likely to see new opportunities because of the increase in the number of products that use software today. The demand for software developers is being driven by factors such as competition to create new applications for mobile devices, a need for software innovation in the health and insurance industries to manage patient care, and concerns over threats to computer security.

Pursuing education as a software developer opens up your opportunity to pursue a variety of careers, which include:

Front-End Developers: These types of developers are good at creating the user interface of the website or doing some designing work. They work with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and any other front-end technologies and frameworks.

Game Developers:These developers write the code for games specializing in different gaming frameworks or game engines.

Back-end Developers: These developers write the code for server-side development with their focus being on manipulating databases, the architecture of a system, different kinds of APIs, scripting, etc. What they do give powers to the web page or mobile applications.

Application Developers: They develop any software used by a consumer and mostly use languages such as Java, C++, or Oracle to develop these applications.

Mobile Engineers: Mobile developers specialize across different platforms like Android or iOS and work very closely with designers to develop mobile apps that we use on our phones.

Data Scientist or Engineer: Data engineers usually work on the data ingestion and organization pipeline. Data scientists, on the other hand, design experiments and algorithms that crunch the data into useful results. The two roles use large data sets to help the business and their customers make better decisions.

Top 5 Software Developer books you MUST read!

• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship: This is one of the most popular programming books out there and it teaches software developers the principles of writing clean programming code.
• The Pragmatic Programmer: This book is a classic that will help you create better software and rediscover the joy of coding. You’ll learn how to approach tackling different problems in your future professional career.
• Working Effectively with Legacy Code: This book will teach you how to get legacy code ready for testing and how to identify where the code needs to be changed. It will help you understand the general mechanics of software change like adding features, fixing bugs, optimizing performance, and improving the design.
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code: With this book, you will be able to understand the process and general principles of refactoring that you can quickly apply to your codebase. It will help you recognize “bad smells” in code that signal opportunities to refactor, tradeoffs, and obstacles to refactoring.
• Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide: This book is filled with great visualizations to help you to learn new concepts easily. It shows you the tried-and-true, road-tested patterns, and best practices used by developers to create functional, elegant, reusable, and flexible software.

5 Best online platforms for Software Developer courses

• How to Become a Software Developer from Scratch: https://www.udemy.com/share/102KAq/
• Learning Python: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-python/learning-python
• Python for Everybody Specialization: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/python

Software Development: Better Requirements Gathering Skills: https://www.udemy.com/share/101Rh0/

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links are affiliate links and at no additional cost to you.