As a Software Support Specialist, you will work on mission-critical projects. You will provide solutions for customer-facing support requests, cooperate closely with IT business analysts, architects, developers, and quality assurance specialists. You will also need to know business subject matters in the software of your company.
A bachelor's degree in computer science, mathematics, statistics, or a business-related field is preferred. You need to know IT and demonstrate strong analytical and problem-solving skills. You need experience with Microsoft SQL Server and also have basic knowledge of object-oriented test-driven development concepts. Your median annual salary can be $93,000.
How to Become a Software Support Specialist
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a software support specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $27.82 an hour? That's $57,857 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 10% and produce 83,100 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Software Support Specialist Do
There are certain skills that many software support specialists 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 customer-service skills, listening skills and problem-solving skills.
How To Become a Software Support Specialist
If you're interested in becoming a software support specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 57.7% of software support specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 5.0% of software support specialists have master's degrees. Even though most software support specialists have a college degree, it's possible 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 software support specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a software support specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on software support specialist resumes include master's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a software support specialist. In fact, many software support specialist jobs require experience in a role such as technical support specialist. Meanwhile, many software support specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as customer service representative or help desk analyst.
Software Support Specialist Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a software support specialist can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as technical support specialist, progress to a title such as systems administrator and then eventually end up with the title information technology manager.
Software Support Specialist
Information Technology Manager
7 Years
Information Technology Director
10 Years
Senior Product Manager
9 Years
Chief Information Officer
11 Years
Senior Information Technology Manager
10 Years
Service Delivery Manager
10 Years
Show More
Average Salary for a Software Support Specialist
Software Support Specialists in America make an average salary of $57,857 per year or $28 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $90,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $36,000 per year.
Average Software Support Specialist Salary
$57,857Â Yearly$27.82 hourly
$36,000
10 %
$57,000
Median
$90,000
90 %
What Am I Worth?
0 selections
0 selections
Top Colleges for Software Support Specialists
1. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,354
Enrollment
7,083
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
3. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
In-State Tuition
$54,568
Enrollment
8,451
4. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$56,225
Enrollment
19,548
5. California State University - Bakersfield
Bakersfield, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$7,309
Enrollment
9,142
6. SUNY at Binghamton
Vestal, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$9,808
Enrollment
13,990
7. San Diego State University
San Diego, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$7,488
Enrollment
30,018
8. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$53,948
Enrollment
17,238
9. New York University
New York, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,828
Enrollment
26,339
10. Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$50,530
Enrollment
4,571
Top Skills For a Software Support Specialist
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, 13.3% of software support specialists listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and listening skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Software Support Specialist Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Software Support Specialist templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Software Support Specialist resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Software Support Specialist Demographics
Software Support Specialist Gender Distribution
Male
61%
Female
39%
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among software support specialists, 38.8% of them are women, while 61.2% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among software support specialists is White, which makes up 60.5% of all software support specialists.
- The most common foreign language among software support specialists is Spanish at 43.1%.
Online Courses For Software Support Specialist That You May Like
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Best States For a Software Support Specialist
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a software support specialist. The best states for people in this position are Virginia, Delaware, Texas, and California. Software support specialists make the most in Virginia with an average salary of $77,467. Whereas in Delaware and Texas, they would average $75,995 and $72,097, respectively. While software support specialists would only make an average of $71,024 in California, 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. New Mexico
Total Software Support Specialist Jobs:
713
Highest 10% Earn:
$105,000
Location Quotient:
2.13 Location Quotient is a measure used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to determine how concentrated a certain industry is in a single state compared to the nation as a whole. You can read more about how BLS calculates location quotients here
$69,270
Avg. Salary
2. Virginia
Total Software Support Specialist Jobs:
1,652
Highest 10% Earn:
$113,000
Location Quotient:
1.03 Location Quotient is a measure used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to determine how concentrated a certain industry is in a single state compared to the nation as a whole. You can read more about how BLS calculates location quotients here
$77,467
Avg. Salary
3. Kentucky
Total Software Support Specialist Jobs:
869
Highest 10% Earn:
$93,000
Location Quotient:
1.38 Location Quotient is a measure used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to determine how concentrated a certain industry is in a single state compared to the nation as a whole. You can read more about how BLS calculates location quotients here
$64,148
Avg. Salary
How Do Software Support Specialist Rate Their Jobs?
Top Software Support Specialist 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 software support specialists and discovered their number of software support specialist opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Amdocs was the best, especially with an average salary of $91,594. IBM follows up with an average salary of $78,887, and then comes Garmin with an average of $56,043. 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 software support specialist. The employers include Progress Software, Gorgias, and None
Most Common Employers For Software Support Specialist
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BNY Mellon | $110,764 | $53.25 | 6 |
| 2 | Amdocs | $91,594 | $44.04 | 30 |
| 3 | NCR | $84,225 | $40.49 | 10 |
| 4 | IBM | $78,887 | $37.93 | 24 |
| 5 | Intuit | $74,792 | $35.96 | 8 |
| 6 | Lockheed Martin | $69,699 | $33.51 | 10 |
| 7 | CHR Solutions | $63,432 | $30.50 | 13 |
| 8 | Personify, Inc. | $63,010 | $30.29 | 10 |
| 9 | FEI Systems | $61,840 | $29.73 | 7 |
| 10 | EMC | $61,614 | $29.62 | 13 |