There’s a lot of different software engineer career paths that it may be difficult. Learning about each one can help you determine which career path is right for you. I’ll go over the 5 software engineer career paths you can take if you’re looking to get into the technology industry.
QA/Test Engineer
QA Software testing is a process that ensures companies deliver the best software possible. This includes keeping the software as bug-free as possible (in reality, no software is completely bug-free. Rather, keeping the product bugs to a minimum and prioritizing which bugs to fix in and of itself is a very tall order.)
QA Testing, in short, execute repeatable and standardized procedures while delivering consistent results. This type of testing automation ensures that if new code were to be pushed to those features, we’d be able to catch the bugs before the customer does. As you can see, QA Testing is very process-oriented.
Companies are often focused on delivering the latest and greatest products. However, customers are often pushed aside as a result. This is where QA Test Engineers come into play. New software is expected to work seamlessly once it hits production, but we know this rarely happens.
QA Testing is to ensure that customers experience the least amount of bugs possible and deliver the top tier experience customers deserve. QA Testing may be an option for you if delivering the best products to customers is what you find yourself doing in the future.
Front-end Developer
Front-end engineers are web developers that specialize in front-end technology frameworks such as Angular and React.
To become a front-end developer, first you need to be proficient in HTML and CSS. Secondly, you will run in JavaScript at some point in your career, so JavaScript is an absolute MUST in your toolkit.
From there, start learning JQuery, a very popular JavaScript library. JQuery is used very frequently in the web development industry. Also, if you’re familiar with CSS selectors that knowledge can be transferred to when you need JQuery selectors.
As for what you’ll do on a day-to-day basis, you’ll work with designers to try to bring their wireframe (UI mockup) to life. The designers (or business stakeholders) have a storyboard that they’d like for you to implement.
If you like design and are passionate about bringing the best UI experience for clients, front-end development might be for you.
Back-end Engineer
Back-end engineers are responsible for designing, building and maintaining the server-side for web applications. These engineers are responsible for overseeing the overall structure of the software application and may sometimes need to dive into the database as well.
Back-end development is generally considered difficult because all server-side languages such as C#, Java and Python are object-oriented. Which is a little bit harder to conceptualize than HTML and CSS.
When you enter the realm of back-end development, a few concepts come to mind:
- Database – SQL Server, MongoDB, etc
- Web Servers – Apache, Windows Server
- Cloud computing – Azure and AWS
- APIs – REST, JSON
- Security – SQL Injection, CSRF
- Scalability – Caching, Load balancing
This is not a complete list. And you can definitely specialize in one of these areas.
I’m not saying you need to specialize in any of these areas to become a back-end developer. You just need to know a little bit about each one.
If you already know know Java, C#, Swift or any other object oriented programming language, you already have the capability to build back-end services. You’ll never be able to know everything, only to experience every area little by little when you become a back-end engineer.
Full-Stack Engineer
Full-stack development is a little bit of a mix between front-end and back-end development.
On the front-end side, you know the basic concepts of HTML, CSS and JavaScript and can design a fairly simple layout or debug front-end issues.
On the back-end side, you most likely won’t build back-end services from the ground up, but you’re able to maintain an existing infrastructure and provide some context to issues when they suddenly occur.
This, in my opinion, is the best option if you’re willing to learn a lot in a short amount of time. In reality, a business has many layers and therefore you won’t be strictly front-end or back-end. You’re expected to fix the issue wherever the issue may be. This is why full-stack developers are so valuable.
Mobile Developer
If web development isn’t for you, perhaps mobile development can be the career path for you. There are two operating systems for mobile applications: Android and IOS. If you want to build applications for IOS, then Swift and Objective C are your only choices. Java is for Android.
Microsoft has come up with a framework that allows your application to be deployed on both Android and IOS devices. With Xamarin, you can build your applications for Android, IOS, MaCOS or PC all under C# and .NET. This way, you won’t need to learn different languages to program for different operating systems.
However, mobile development is still a very niche area. There isn’t a lot of demand for mobile developers. Plus, if you have a few years experience as a software engineer, mobile development at its core is the same web development.
If you’re already skilled in web development, your skills can be easily transferred to mobile development.
Wrapping it up
The software engineering industry offers a wide range of career opportunities. Different systems require different knowledge so learning about the various types of roles is important in determining which career path best suits you.
I hope you gained some valuable information. Whichever path you choose, it’s all about consistency and the ability to try and try again, no matter how many times you may fail. The most successful ones understand that software engineering is a constant learning process and strive to improve with every obstacle they encounter.
Thanks for reading and happy learning!
– Bao