If you want to become a designated in-house authority or a technology guru, the role of a lead developer may right up your alley. In the IT world, a lead developer is a software engineer in charge of several projects. In many organizations, the role of lead developer goes beyond software development and reaches the technical leader of a team of developers.
In general, a lead developer is responsible for advocating on best practices, communicating progress, monitoring other developers, and providing technical guidance to the team; in short, they are responsible for facilitating the smooth running of projects. They may collaborate with makers, stakeholders, designers, CEOs, or top managers to ensure that the goals of the team align with the business goals of clients. Moreover, they act as a bridge between their development team and other business-oriented departments in their organization.
This career requires a bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, math, physics, or a related field. Most employers prefer an individual with several years of experience in software development. Lead developers should also have in-depth knowledge of software development, hands-on experience with coding and delivering digital products, and the ability to delegate tasks to other team members and peer developers.
How to Become a Lead Developer
What is a Lead Developer
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a Lead Developer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $56.99 an hour? That's $118,541 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 21% and produce 284,100 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Lead Developer Do
There are certain skills that many Lead Developers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed Analytical skills, Communication skills and Creativity.
How To Become a Lead Developer
If you're interested in becoming a Lead Developer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 68.0% of Lead Developers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 20.9% of Lead Developers have master's degrees. Even though most Lead Developers have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a Lead Developer. When we researched the most common majors for a Lead Developer, we found that they most commonly earn Bachelor's Degree degrees or Master's Degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on Lead Developer resumes include Associate Degree degrees or Diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a Lead Developer. In fact, many Lead Developer jobs require experience in a role such as Developer. Meanwhile, many Lead Developers also have previous career experience in roles such as Senior Software Engineer or Software Engineer.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
And if you’re looking for a job, here are the five top employers hiring now:
Lead Developer Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of Lead Technician you might progress to a role such as Project Manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title Senior Director Of Information & Technology.
Lead Developer Jobs You Might Like
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Lead Developer
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12 Lead Developer Resume Examples
Build a professional lead developer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 12+ resume templates to create your lead developer resume.
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Amber Woods Lead Developer |
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Beverly Henderson Lead Developer Experience Lead Developer2020 - Present Infosys Public Services•Houston, TX
Senior Software Engineer2018 - 2020 AT&T•Plano, TX
NET Developer2017 - 2018 IBM•Plano, TX
Junior .NET Developer2015 - 2017 Capital One•Plano, TX
Skills InfrastructureScrumSQLCloudSite CollectionsWeb ServicesAPIJavascriptArchitectureCustom Workflows Education Bachelor's Degree Computer Engineering2012 - 2015 University of Texas at Austin•Austin, TX |
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Learn How To Write a Lead Developer Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Lead Developer resumes and compiled some information about how to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Lead Developer Resume Examples And TemplatesAnd if you’re looking for a job, here are the five top employers hiring now:
Choose From 10+ Customizable Lead Developer Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Lead Developer templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Lead Developer resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Lead Developer Demographics
Lead Developer Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among Lead Developers, 23.6% of them are women, while 76.4% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among Lead Developers is White, which makes up 56.3% of all Lead Developers.
- The most common foreign language among Lead Developers is Spanish at 43.3%.
Find the best Lead Developer job for you
Lead Developer Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Lead Developer Jobs - $154K and Up
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- Actively Hiring
- No Degree Lead Developer Jobs
Top Colleges for Lead Developers
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA • Private
2. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
3. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
4. Duke University
Durham, NC • Private
5. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
6. Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA • Private
7. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
8. Georgetown University
Washington, DC • Private
9. Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH • Private
10. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
Find the best Lead Developer job for you
Lead Developer Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Lead Developer Jobs - $154K and Up
- Work From Home Lead Developer Jobs
- Entry Level Lead Developer Jobs
- Part Time Lead Developer Jobs
- Actively Hiring
- No Degree Lead Developer Jobs
Online Courses For Lead Developer That You May Like
Learn how to create a maintainable Web API using ASP.NET Core 5, Entity Framework and Enterprise Level Design Patterns...
Learn how to build a single-page application from start to finish with ASP.NET Web API 2, Entity Framework and jQuery...
Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp HTML Project HTML 5 CSS 3 JavaScript Bootstrap ES6 jQuery NodeJS...
Top Skills For a Lead Developer
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 6.6% of Lead Developers listed Web Services on their resume, but soft skills such as Analytical skills and Communication skills are important as well.
Best States For a Lead Developer
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a Lead Developer. The best states for people in this position are California, Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Lead Developers make the most in California with an average salary of $142,966. Whereas in Washington and Oregon, they would average $141,883 and $129,812, respectively. While Lead Developers would only make an average of $124,788 in Montana, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Utah
$123,399
Avg. Salary
2. Montana
$124,788
Avg. Salary
3. Nevada
$122,780
Avg. Salary
How Do Lead Developer Rate Their Jobs?
Top Lead Developer Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ Lead Developers and discovered their number of Lead Developer opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that IBM was the best, especially with an average salary of $93,500. Accenture follows up with an average salary of $117,474, and then comes American Express with an average of $125,577. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a Lead Developer. The employers include Deloitte, Charles Schwab, and IBM
Lead Developer Videos
