Software Developers
Research, design, and develop computer and network software or specialized utility programs. Analyze user needs and develop software solutions, applying principles and techniques of computer science, engineering, and mathematical analysis. Update software or enhance existing software capabilities. May work with computer hardware engineers to integrate hardware and software systems, and develop specifications and performance requirements. May maintain databases within an application area, working individually or coordinating database development as part of a team.
Common Job Titles
- Application Developer
- Application Integration Engineer
- Software Architect
- Software Developer
Wage Data According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Annual wage data for Software Developers (2024)
Estimated Total Employment (U.S.)
1,654,440
Wage Distribution by Percentile
Line chart of annual wages by percentile. U.S. is the solid line. 10th percentile: U.S. $79,850. 25th percentile: U.S. $103,050. 50th percentile: U.S. $133,080. 75th percentile: U.S. $169,000. 90th percentile: U.S. $211,450. Use the left and right arrow keys to move between percentiles.
- U.S.
| Metric | U.S. |
|---|---|
| 10% of workers earn the following or less | $79,850 |
| 10% of workers earn the following or more | $211,450 |
| Workers on average earn | $144,570 |
+ indicates wage is at or above the BLS reporting cap ($239,200/year)
Tools & Technology
Equipment and software commonly used in this occupation
In-Demand Technology
Frequently requested by employers in job postings
- AJAX
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe After Effects
- Adobe Creative Cloud software
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe InDesign
- Adobe Photoshop
- Alteryx software
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2
- Amazon Redshift
- Amazon Simple Storage Service S3
- Amazon Web Services AWS CloudFormation
- Amazon Web Services AWS software
- Ansible software
- Apache Cassandra
- Apache Hadoop
- Apache Hive
- Apache Kafka
- Apache Maven
- Apache Spark
- Apache Subversion SVN
- Apache Tomcat
- Apple iOS
- Apple macOS
- Atlassian Bitbucket
- Atlassian Confluence
- Atlassian JIRA
- Bash
- Bootstrap
- Border Gateway Protocol BGP
- C
- C#
- C++
- Cascading style sheets CSS
- Chef
- Cisco Webex
- Django
- Docker
- Drupal
- ESRI ArcGIS software
- Eclipse IDE
- Eclipse Jersey
- Elasticsearch
- Extensible markup language XML
- Figma
- Git
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Go
- Google Analytics
- Google Android
- Google Angular
- Google Docs
- Google Sheets
- GraphQL
- Hibernate ORM
- Hypertext markup language HTML
- IBM DB2
- IBM SPSS Statistics
- IBM Terraform
- IBM WebSphere MQ
- Informatica software
- JUnit
- JavaScript
- JavaScript Object Notation JSON
- Jenkins CI
- Kubernetes
- Linux
- Marketo Marketing Automation
- Microsoft .NET Framework
- Microsoft ASP.NET
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Active Directory
- Microsoft Active Server Pages ASP
- Microsoft Azure software
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Power BI
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft PowerShell
- Microsoft Project
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services SSIS
- Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services SSRS
- Microsoft SharePoint
- Microsoft Team Foundation Server
- Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Visio
- Microsoft Visual Basic
- Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications VBA
- Microsoft Visual Studio
- Microsoft Windows
- Microsoft Windows Server
- Microsoft Word
- MongoDB
- MySQL
- NoSQL
- Node.js
- Oracle Cloud software
- Oracle Database
- Oracle Java
- Oracle Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition J2EE
- Oracle PL/SQL
- Oracle PeopleSoft
- Oracle Primavera Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
- Oracle SQL Developer
- PHP
- Perl
- PostgreSQL
- Puppet
- PyTorch
- Python
- R
- React
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Red Hat OpenShift
- Redis
- Ruby
- SAP ERP
- SAP software
- SAS
- Salesforce software
- Scala
- Selenium
- ServiceNow
- Shell script
- Slack
- Splunk Enterprise
- Spring Boot
- Spring Framework
- Structured query language SQL
- Swift
- Tableau
- TensorFlow
- Teradata Database
- The MathWorks MATLAB
- Transact-SQL
- Trimble SketchUp Pro
- TypeScript
- UNIX
- UNIX Shell
- Vue.js
- WordPress
- Workday software
- Zoom
- jQuery
Technology Skills
- 3M Post-it App
- A programming language APL
- ABC Compiler
- ABC: the AspectBench Compiler for AspectJ
- ADO.NET
- AWK
- Ada
- Adobe ActionScript
Tools & Equipment
- Application servers
- Computer servers
- Desktop computers
- Digital cameras
- Directory servers
- Flash disks
- Graphics processing unit GPU
- In circuit emulators ICE