A senior software engineer supervises a team of software engineers in the development of information systems. He/she oversees the designing, development, and installation of software solutions for websites or other software programs.
They usually work closely with other IT professionals such as data scientists, system architects, development teams, and senior management. Senior software engineers can work in almost all organizations, including healthcare facilities, government agencies, computer systems design companies, logistics companies, non-profit organizations, or electronic product manufacturing companies. A successful senior software engineer should have coding and programming knowledge. He/she should have working experience with Ruby, Java, Python, C++, etc.
He/she should also have analytical skills, communication skills, and attention to detail. Senior software engineers often work in an office setting. They usually work 40 hours a week Monday to Friday but may be required to work extra hours to meet urgent deadlines.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior software engineer/architect. For example, did you know that they make an average of $55.27 an hour? That's $114,966 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 21% and produce 284,100 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many senior software engineers/architect 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.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior software engineer/architect, we found that a lot of resumes listed 8.1% of senior software engineers/architect included architecture, while 7.9% of resumes included web services, and 6.0% of resumes included java. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the senior software engineer/architect job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior software engineers/architect actually find jobs in the technology and professional industries.
If you're interested in becoming a senior software engineer/architect, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 48.9% of senior software engineers/architect have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 40.2% of senior software engineers/architect have master's degrees. Even though most senior software engineers/architect 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 senior software engineer/architect. When we researched the most common majors for a senior software engineer/architect, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior software engineer/architect resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior software engineer/architect. In fact, many senior software engineer/architect jobs require experience in a role such as senior software engineer. Meanwhile, many senior software engineers/architect also have previous career experience in roles such as software engineer or software developer.