A Basic Guide to Software Developer Career Path

Opportunities for software developer career paths are scaling right along with it as technology continues to grow by bounds and leaps. Skilled programmers will find open management roles if they want to develop their soft skills and interpersonal relationship. Thus, there are several options available for a technically proficient communicator, and they can also qualify for different roles like manager, architect, team lead, sr. developer, and even move into senior management.

It can take anywhere from several months to several years to move through the road to the highest paying senior positions, based on various other factors. The career path progression speed tends to vary mainly due to communication and critical-thinking skills, internal drive, and demonstrated technical ability.

Career Path for a Typical Software Developer

Junior Developer

This level is the starting or ground position that any developer would have when they come out of the college or any accelerated courses. With this level, they have little to no real-world computer programming experience. A junior developer will need these requirements:

• Basic understanding of application and database services like caching and queues.
• Knowledge of the typical application lifecycle.
• The ability to write simple scripts.

When junior programmers may sometimes have to write complex applications, they may feel as if they are over their heads. Thus, they can question why not getting promoted for doing similar work as other senior developers. Everyone will see this to be quite normal. However, experience counts as the main difference between a junior and senior developer.

Software Developer, Sr. Software Developer

A person that has become proficient at developing entire applications is known as a senior software developer or software developer. Spending several years as a senior developer is much of a software developer’s career path. Typical requirements for a senior software developer are:

• Possessing a thorough understanding of application lifecycle development, application services, and databases.
• Ability to write complex code.
• Having several years of professional programming experience.

Individuals with a passion for writing code without any love for management can spend several years or even the whole of their career as a senior developer. However, being a senior developer can be a stepping point to management positions, including CTO or lead developer for a startup.

Lead Developer, Technical Architect

Someone with a passion for more responsibility and the challenge of managing a team will find an architect or lead developer ideal. These senior developers are also specialized since they give directions to other programmers. While writing code as lead developers, they also implement decisions and coordinate work. Architects are responsible for designing complex systems that other developers can implement even though they write code occasionally. The lead developer position has some of these requirements:

• Ability to build, plan, and conceptualize software to solve complex problems.
• Possessing similar technical skills that a senior developer may have.
• Demonstrating subject matter expertise.
• Many years of professional programming experience.

Many people often see lead developer positions as mid-level manager positions or transitional roles. However, the architect is a technical role and typically not a transitional job. People often consider technical architects as the highest position on the technical career ladder.