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Love to Code? 10 Programming Careers for Those Who Love Computer Science

Careers in STEM have been getting a lot of press in recent years. It’s not entirely surprising, as STEM positions tend to pay at least 26% higher than other jobs with a similar level of education.

That’s not going to change anytime soon, either. STEM positions are projected to grow by at least 13% each year. That’s good news, as 93% of STEM occupations have salaries higher than the national average.

If you’re passionate about STEM and are thinking about going into the coding side of things, here’s a list of in-demand programming careers to get you started.

5 Programming Careers for your STEM Career

Tech isn’t a monolith. In fact, it’s made up of millions of moving parts working together in graceful harmony. The good news is that each of these parts is a potentially lucrative career for you to get into. The downside is that they all tend to have their skillsets and specialized learning you’ll need to master.

Knowing which direction you’re heading in will help give you some advance warning on what you’ll need to master to secure a profitable programming career.

Software Application Developer

If you like to make things that people will actually use and love, becoming a software application developer might be a good programming career for you. Software application together creates software for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.

Being a software application developer requires a lot of big-picture thinking. You’ll need to bridge the gap between front-end and back-end stack development, for starters. You’ll also need to work with different parts of an organization to make sure that everybody’s visions are being accounted for.

The average salary for a software application developer is $100,080. Many software application development positions only require a Bachelor’s Degree. The field’s projected to grow by 30%, each year, making it a good bet for those looking for stable employment.

Web Developer

STEM careers tend to require a lot of patience. You’ll have to go through code line by line when something’s not working. Often, that code’s not even written by you, requiring an extra level of patience.

is a perfect programming career for those who enjoy instant gratification. It’s much more ‘forward-facing’, as your creations go live to the public the moment you publish your web content.

That means you’ve got to be extra careful, however. Web development requires a balance of thoroughness and boldness.

It also requires understanding people, as well as technical skills. Web development is a good programming career for those who feel that working in STEM might be under-stimulating due to a lack of human interaction.

Web development typically requires an Associate’s Degree. The average salary is $66,130. It’s projected to grow by 13% each year until 2026.

Mobile Developer

77% of Americans own a smartphone at this point. Mobile technology has intertwined with our daily lives until they’re nearly indistinguishable from one another. That means the demand for mobile developers is nearly unlimited.

There’s a number of ways you can break into mobile development. One is to build and launch your own mobile app.

The app market may not be as thriving as it once was, so it’s a tough bid to make your living this way. It’s still a great way to market yourself and your mobile development abilities, however.

There are numerous different disciplines within mobile development. The different mobile platforms each have their own skillset. This sub-divides the industry into smaller, more manageable segments, where it’s easier to get noticed.

If you’re looking to get into developing for Android, learning Java is going to be the fastest way to become eligible for coding careers. For iOS, Objective-C and Swift are your best bet. You’ll want to learn C# if you’ll be developing for Windows Mobile.

Database Management

Businesses are dealing with larger quantities of data than ever before. Even small businesses can generate terabytes of data over the span of a year. This means that even small businesses can feature quite hefty databases.

Not only do these databases need to be maintained, but they also need to work together as a network as well. Think of content management systems (CMS), for example. They’re not much good if the sales data can’t be shared with the marketing team.

Database management is also a fast track to working in government or finance if that’s your thing.

To get into database management, learning SQL and NoSQL is your best bet.

Data Science

The term Big Data has been absolutely everywhere in recent years. For good reason, too, as it’s the building block for Artificial Intelligence, automation, and even personalized recommendations on eCommerce sites.

With this in mind, pretty much any programming career in the data science is going to be in demand for at least the next few years. Being a data analyst is one potential path for you to consider if you’re into creating Infographics or explaining difficult topics in an understandable way.

Data engineering is also in demand, considering the amount of data that organizations produce. Data engineers make sure that data comes in clean and well organized so it’s usable and useful straight out of the gate.

A Machine Learning Engineer is one final data science career for you to think about. If you’re passionate about sci-fi and want to be on the cutting-edge of the latest technology, becoming a machine learning engineer will check all of your boxes. Machine learning is one of the most important components of Artificial Intelligence.

If you want to learn more about how to get started in Data Science, read about how to Learn R, which is a common programming language for data visualization.

A career in programming is much more exciting and rewarding than a lot of people might think. After all, technology’s interwoven in every detail of our daily lives at this point. It’s much more than just 1s and 0s.

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