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Best Jobs For Former Software Engineers [2023]

By Chris Kolmar
Jul. 13, 2022

It’s tough to be a software engineer nowadays, and more and more of them are losing confidence in their own profession.

While the amount of people majoring in courses preparing people for a job as a software engineer isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become software engineers in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many software engineers no longer sticking around, this begs the question:

What are they all doing now?

We were curious, so we looked through the resumes of former software engineers to see what kind of jobs they were moving into after leaving the field. There were thousands of answers, so we made the cutoff at the top 100 jobs.

But given that there are some very surprising and interesting items on this list, we’ve decided to highlight a few of those instead.

Best Jobs For Former SOFTWARE ENGINEERS

  1. Lead Technician Jobs

  2. Senior Java Developer Jobs

  3. Web Developer Jobs

  4. Applications Developer Jobs

  5. Developer Jobs

  6. Quality Assurance Lead Jobs

  7. Graduate Research Assistant Jobs

  8. Java Developer Jobs

  9. Systems Analyst Jobs

  10. Graduate Assistant Jobs

Some of these items are admittedly more attractive than one another as far as actually working the job goes, but one way or another, you’ve got to admit they’re eye-catching.

The full list of those jobs can be found below.

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former SOFTWARE ENGINEERS

Rank Job Title %
1 Senior Software Engineer 13.88%
2 Software Developer 2.27%
3 Consultant 1.35%
4 Lead Technician 1.22%
5 Research Assistant 1.18%
6 Senior Java Developer 1.09%
7 Systems Engineer 0.94%
8 Programmer Analyst 0.93%
9 Project Manager 0.9%
10 Business Analyst 0.89%
11 Web Developer 0.88%
12 Quality Assurance Engineer 0.76%
13 Applications Developer 0.76%
14 Software Engineering Internship 0.75%
15 Developer 0.74%
16 Quality Assurance Lead 0.66%
17 Senior Consultant 0.65%
18 Principal Software Engineer 0.64%
19 Graduate Research Assistant 0.64%
20 Java Developer 0.61%
21 Team Leader 0.58%
22 Software Development Engineer 0.56%
23 Senior Systems Engineer 0.5%
24 Teaching Assistant 0.5%
25 Internship 0.5%
26 Systems Analyst 0.5%
27 Senior Engineer 0.48%
28 Software Test Engineer 0.47%
29 Engineer 0.47%
30 Senior Project Manager 0.46%
31 Product Manager 0.45%
32 Program Manager 0.45%
33 Graduate Assistant 0.45%
34 Test Engineer 0.44%
35 Senior Quality Assurance Engineer 0.4%
36 Net Developer 0.4%
37 Project Leader 0.39%
38 Quality Assurance Analyst 0.37%
39 Software Consultant 0.35%
40 Senior .net Developer 0.34%
41 Systems Administrator 0.34%
42 Principal Engineer 0.34%
43 Senior Programmer Analyst 0.32%
44 Database Administrator 0.32%
45 Staff Software Engineer 0.32%
46 Graduate Teaching Assistant 0.32%
47 Technical Analyst 0.31%
48 Java/j2ee Developer 0.31%
49 Solutions Architect 0.3%
50 Data Analyst 0.3%
51 Software Engineering Manager 0.29%
52 Lead Engineer 0.29%
53 Programmer 0.28%
54 Technical Consultant 0.28%
55 Embedded Software Engineer 0.28%
56 Lead Developer 0.27%
57 Director Of Software Development 0.27%
58 Engineering Manager 0.27%
59 Senior Manager 0.27%
60 Software Developer Internship 0.27%
61 Software Development Manager 0.26%
62 Quality Assurance Tester 0.26%
63 Research And Development Internship 0.26%
64 Software Architect 0.25%
65 Information Technology Manager 0.25%
66 Information Technology Project Manager 0.25%
67 Information Technology Specialist 0.25%
68 Interactive Developer 0.23%
69 Information Technology Consultant 0.23%
70 Chief Technology Officer 0.23%
71 Associate 0.23%
72 Owner 0.23%
73 Senior Business Analyst 0.23%
74 Architect 0.23%
75 Technology Architect 0.22%
76 Senior Systems Analyst 0.22%
77 Senior Associate 0.21%
78 Senior Analyst 0.21%
79 Technical Project Manager 0.21%
80 Senior Web Developer 0.21%
81 Software Engineer-Consultant 0.21%
82 Manager 0.21%
83 Software Systems Engineer 0.2%
84 Information Technology Analyst 0.2%
85 Oracle Database Administrator 0.2%
86 Founder 0.2%
87 Firmware Engineer 0.19%
88 Senior Technologist 0.19%
89 Application Engineer 0.18%
90 Automation Engineer 0.18%
91 Software Design Engineer 0.18%
92 Senior Quality Assurance Analyst 0.18%
93 Web Application Developer 0.18%
94 Quality Assurance 0.17%
95 Senior Product Manager 0.17%
96 Front End Developer 0.17%
97 Software Quality Engineer 0.17%
98 Mobile Applications Developer 0.17%
99 Engineering Internship 0.16%
100 Electrical Engineer 0.16%

Most Common Jobs For Former SOFTWARE ENGINEERS

  1. Senior Software Engineer

  2. Software Developer

  3. Consultant

  4. Lead Technician

  5. Research Assistant

  6. Senior Java Developer

  7. Systems Engineer

  8. Programmer Analyst

  9. Project Manager

  10. Business Analyst

These are all good jobs, all of them either utilizing some skill that a software engineer would have or being a stepping stone to a different career.

Here’s the thing about these jobs though — they’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect a lot of former software engineers to do.

How We Determined the Best Jobs of Former SOFTWARE ENGINEERS

Using resume information from our database of over 7 million resumes, we looked at all resumes that listed software engineer under their work history. Then we looked at which jobs showed up on their work histories following their stints as a software engineer, sorting them by their most frequent.

That’s how we made the initial ranked list.

To make our list of most interesting jobs, we looked through the ranked list to see if any positions:

  • Showed up in fewer than 1% of all new jobs
  • And, were not part of the 100 most common jobs in our database

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Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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