How To Become A Software Design Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a software design engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Frank McCown Ph.D.,

Kevin Treu Ph.D.

Software design engineers are tasked with identifying software problems and designing programs to find solutions. They can either create a new product or iteration of existing software products to improve them. They gather data about the process and incorporate existing software solutions while making the end software's parameters and limits. Software design engineers earn a median sum of $89,000 annually or $42 per hour.

Software design engineers primarily find solutions to different software problems by designing, modifying, developing, and implementing software programming applications. They support and install operating systems and participate in the testing process through test review and analysis, test witnessing, and software certification. A sound software design engineer is highly creative and possesses excellent analytical and communication skills.

Software design engineers typically hold a bachelor's degree in computer engineering, tech engineering, or other related fields. However, some large corporations may decide to hire candidates with a higher academic degree. They are expected to have some practical experience in a design team or at lower development team levels.

What general advice would you give to a software design engineer?

Frank McCown Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Harding University

The market is stable for software developers, despite the economic challenges created by the pandemic. Before accepting a job offer, talk to the company's employees through online meetings or email, and see what they think of the company. Do they enjoy their work? Are there opportunities to learn new technologies? How does the company treat their employees? There's a good chance you will be working remotely in your first job, so you will need to exercise a lot of self-discipline, be punctual for online meetings, do the work you've been assigned, and know when to ask questions when you get stuck. Expect a steeper-than-normal learning curve if you are working remotely instead of in an office.

ScoreSoftware Design EngineerUS Average

Salary

7.6

Avg. Salary $98,799

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 29.88%

Black or African American 4.50%

Hispanic or Latino 8.25%

Unknown 4.82%

White 52.39%

Gender

female 18.35%

male 81.65%

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 software design engineer

Explore software design engineer education requirements

Most common software design engineer degrees

Bachelor's

71.8 %

Master's

21.0 %

Associate

4.3 %

Start to develop specific software design engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Software Development	7.29%
Python	7.22%
Software Design	6.96%
Java	6.19%
Linux	4.74%

Complete relevant software design engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New software design engineers 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 software design engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real software design engineer resumes.

Research software design engineer duties and responsibilities

Fabricate style sheets to manage the look-and-feel of the site using CSS, bootstrap and XML.
Work on HMI (including both GUI and SUI) apps for shell menu and device manage app.
Contribute to implementing microservices used to manage entities and maintain a synchronize state between supplier and distributor.
Code are developed under Linux using C++.

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