If you are looking for a job amid the covid-19, one thing is obvious: getting hired at this juncture isn’t going to be the same as it used to be before the pandemic.
If you are dreaming of a fresh start in the software industry, you need skills that can give you an edge over your rivals in today’s challenging job market.The software industry has witnessed rapid growth in the past decade, especially amid the rise of a pandemic. Today, software development has become a most in-demand skill that combines an entire range of functions, disciplines, and frameworks.To be able to be get hired in the software industry, you need to identify and acquire the relevant skill-set that can set you in the best possible role. This is especially crucial as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to badly affect the global job market.
Looking beyond the pandemic, the demand for skills is only predicted to get tougher in this fast-paced industry.
According to Evans Data Corporation analysis, there were 23 million software developers in 2018 and that number is predicted to reach 27.7 million by 2023.
With that being the issue, it’s important to know which developer skills are the most valuable in today’s market!
Whether you are a fresher or hold past work experience, you should know that the software development experts are often appraised on their proficiency with certain programming languages and frameworks, which are transferrable skills.
The Developer Survey conducted by Stack Overflow in 2020 has found out that 75% of developers have acquired at least one new technology skill once a year.
Similar to many careers, in the software industry, transferrable skills carry more value.
In this blog, we have accentuated the key factors that can help you recognize the skills and prepare accordingly to stand ahead of the competition in this tough job market. Let’s get started.
1. Know that some skills are more essential than others
When it comes to getting hired in the software industry, you need to understand that there are skills and frameworks which are in high demand right now. Such skills will prove more useful in your resume than popular skills like Javascript or C++.
For a factual instance, Rust and Dart are both lightweight programming languages that have not only gained popularity amongst developers but have reached the list of fast-growing programming languages on GitHub between 2018-2019.
Besides, Google’s own Go programming language is thriving in popularity according to the tech hiring marketplace – Hired. It has admitted that Go-skilled engineers obtaining an average of 9+ interview invitations per candidate. While Scala and Ruby are close behind with more than 8 interview invitations per candidate in 2019.
If you are just a beginner, Java and Javascript may just be the most reliable programming languages to start with. Java stands as the second most in-demand skill for employers, behind SQL.
Python language, which quickly surged the skills ranks in the past decade, is popular with data scientists is now the third most in-demand skill.
Python language was also labeled as Tiobe’s programming language of the year for 2020 after hopping 2.01 % last year in the Tiobe Index of language popularity, overtaking C++, which increased 1.99%.
According to PayScale, the average salary for a Python-proficient developer at $91,000, while a Java developer averages $74,000.
2. Stay informed of the alternating aspect of back end skills
Weighing on the back end, there is one obvious way from a skills perspective: containers and cloud-native.
General cloud computing skills manage to adapt with the key vendors: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Employing executives tend to employ against these particular skill sets so that developers can directly be onboarded into the team.
If you are looking to adapt with one of these, AWS goes on to verify the most popular, as many companies have built their services on the AWS stack.
A survey by Indeed revealed that the job postings for AWS-proficient developers increased 5x from 2014 to 2019, far outpacing Azure and GCP demand.
3. Get familiar with the purpose behind the speedy demand for full-stack
When it comes to skills, a full-stack developer is the jack of all trades who can deal with both the front-end and back-end coding needed to build and run applications end-to-end. The has been a huge rise in demand for full-stack developers in the past few years.
According to HackerRank’s 2020 Developer Skills Report, hiring managers at corporations of all sizes acknowledge that full-stack developers are top priority, with 38% of them declaring it was the number one position for them to fill in 2020.
4. Data is still the new fuel
The rise of data science has not only provoked the rise of data engineering but also favored a continual growth of several languages and skills in popularity ranks.
There has been a spike in demand for streaming data tools like Kafka, modern data warehouses like Redshift and Snowflake, and conventional machine learning libraries in the past few years.
Python, R, and Spark are all quickly rising skills that all clarify the demand for data science skills from organizations even today.
5. Traditional education isn’t everything, gain an edge over the rest with new skills
Finally, it is crucial to understand that a formal computer science degree isn’t a necessity to get hired as a software developer in 2021.
Rather than over-indexing on education, it’s important to focus on developing the reliable skills to be job-ready.
State of Software Engineers report of 2020 reveals that 50% of software engineers have a computer science degree. While other 32% either taught themselves to code or learned through a coding Bootcamp—and they own the same set of programming skills.
For those willing to learn the skills on their own, Google and Microsoft have initiated alternatives to standard university degrees, with Google’s Career Certificates scheme and Microsoft’s global skilling initiative.
Similarly, Gen Z is apt than any previous era to utilize boot camps. According to HackerRank’s 2020 Developer Skills Report, almost one in six admitted to having leveraged boot camps to learn new skills.
Besides, 32% of hiring managers have hired Bootcamp grads, while 72% of them declare that those hires were equally or better skilled for the job than others.
Conclusion
The controversy will go on over the real individuality of a traditional computer science degree to become a successful engineer.
However, the same path may not be obtainable for everyone, and that shouldn’t prevent them from earning status in the existing job market.
