How To Become A Mobile APP Developer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a mobile app developer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Brian Glas

There are many career paths to take when it comes to technology, and a mobile app developer is one of such paths. A mobile app developer is a computer software engineer with considerable software development knowledge and skill. A bachelor's degree in computer science or related discipline can help aspiring mobile app developers achieve their goal faster.

The primary responsibility of an app developer is to create, test, and program apps for mobile phones and computers. A developer understands coding languages and often works with other software experts, data scientists, and graphic artists to create applications. Besides creating applications, app developers test for and fix bugs found in launched products.

You must be creative and have excellent communication and analytical skills to be an app developer. With enough dedication, you can become either a mobile app developer, iOS developer, or android developer.

What general advice would you give to a mobile app developer?

Brian Glas

Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Union University

Build relationships: Different technologies will interest and challenge you, but throughout your career, you'll find that it's the relationships that are the most important. This is harder to grasp earlier in your career, but much easier to understand after 15-20 years.
Gain different perspectives: Spend time with people in other roles that your job interacts with, and gain a solid understanding of how they view things; this is most valuable for career progression and understanding of how your work fits into the big picture.

ScoreMobile APP DeveloperUS Average

Salary

7.6

Avg. Salary $99,840

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.0

Growth rate 21%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 29.94%

Black or African American 4.43%

Hispanic or Latino 8.17%

Unknown 4.80%

White 52.49%

Gender

female 17.99%

male 82.01%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

4.0

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.9

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.6

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a mobile app developer

Explore mobile app developer education requirements

Most common mobile app developer degrees

Bachelor's

70.6 %

Master's

16.2 %

Associate

8.9 %

Start to develop specific mobile app developer skills

Skills	Percentages
Java	6.56%
JavaScript	5.16%
React Native	4.86%
Application Development	4.56%
Python	4.56%

Complete relevant mobile app developer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New mobile app developers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a mobile app developer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real mobile app developer resumes.

Research mobile app developer duties and responsibilities

Manage all aspects of maintaining/improving multiple websites running on Magento.
Experience in programming languages such as ASP.net, HTML5and JavaScript and markup languages such as XML and JSON.
Work on web service calls, XML and JSON parsing include in the project.
Experience in working with data parsing forms such as XML and JSON, to dynamically display data on iPhone/iPad.

Prepare your mobile app developer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your mobile app developer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a mobile app developer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable mobile app developer resume templates

Build a professional mobile app developer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your mobile app developer resume.