Software Engineer Career Guide for 2027
- Median annual pay
- $135,980
- BLS OEWS, May 2025
- Projected growth, 2025-35
- 10.2%
- BLS Employment Projections
- Typical entry education
- Bachelor’s
- BLS Employment Projections
Key takeaways
- Software engineers design, build, test and maintain software. BLS counts them as software developers, an occupation that paid a median of $135,980 in May 2025. Most of the job is not typing code: it is working out what a system should do, then making sure it keeps doing it as requirements change.
- BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry education, and 85% of workers O*NET surveyed said a new hire needs one. Software engineering and computer science are the usual majors. An ABET-accredited program is a useful quality check, though employers rarely require it. See the ABET-accredited programs.
- The jobs reach well beyond tech companies. Computer systems design and related services and software publishers employ the most, but management of companies and enterprises, banks and other credit intermediation and insurance carriers and related activities all hire software developers in large numbers. That spread gives you options if one sector slows down or if you want to work on a product you care about.
- BLS projects software developer jobs to grow 10.2% from 2025 to 2035, against 3.5% for all occupations, with about 95,300 openings a year. Growth is strong, but entry-level hiring is competitive, so projects and internships matter as much as the degree itself.
- The career usually moves from small fixes to owning features, then systems, then direction across teams, where some engineers choose management and others stay technical. BLS publishes no pay by level or by experience, so this guide shows the full pay range rather than inventing a salary for each step.
What software engineers do
Counted by BLS as software developers.
Software engineers turn a need into working software and keep it working. That means understanding the problem, designing a solution that fits the existing system, writing and testing the code, and maintaining it as users, hardware and requirements change.
BLS has no separate occupation for software engineers: it counts them, with software developers, as one group of 1,687,890 workers in May 2025. O*NET’s description of that occupation, quoted below, is the most detailed public account of the work.
The core tasks
- Analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints.
- Develop or direct software system testing or validation procedures, programming, or documentation.
- Confer with systems analysts, engineers, programmers and others to design systems and to obtain information on project limitations and capabilities, performance requirements and interfaces.
- Modify existing software to correct errors, adapt it to new hardware, or upgrade interfaces and improve performance.
- Prepare reports or correspondence concerning project specifications, activities, or status.
- Analyze information to determine, recommend, and plan installation of a new system or modification of an existing system.
Task statements for software developers, quoted from O*NET OnLine, in O*NET’s order of importance.
Job titles you will see
- Application Developer
- Application Integration Engineer
- Developer
- DevOps Engineer
- Infrastructure Engineer
- Software Architect
- Software Developer
- Software Development Engineer
- Software Engineer
- Systems Engineer
Titles reported by workers in this occupation, O*NET OnLine.
Where software engineers work
The largest employers of software developers among the 24 industries we checked, BLS OEWS, May 2025.
The biggest employers build software for other companies or sell it themselves, but the industry data shows software developers spread across finance, insurance, research and management. The median differs by industry, so where you work moves pay as well as the kind of product you build.
Software Developers, national industry-specific estimates, BLS OEWS, May 2025. A candidate list of industries, ranked by employment; not BLS’s complete industry ranking. Share is the industry’s employment divided by the occupation’s national employment, 1,687,890.
Ways to become a software engineer
BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry education. Lengths are NCES’s definitions of each degree.
-
A bachelor’s in software engineeringusually at least four years of full-time study · median 121 credits
The most direct route. Software engineering programs add design, testing, requirements and team projects to the programming core, and many are ABET-accredited, which shows the program meets a published standard.
Compare software engineering bachelor’s programs → -
A bachelor’s in computer scienceusually at least four years of full-time study · median 120 credits
The most common major for the job. Computer science leans further into theory, algorithms and systems, and leaves more room for electives; pair it with project work so you can show you build software, not just study it.
Compare computer science bachelor’s programs → -
A master’s in software engineering or computer sciencegenerally one or two years of full-time study beyond the bachelor’s · median 30 credits
For people who already hold a bachelor’s, in computing or another field. It is not required for entry, but it gives a career changer the coursework and the project record employers look for.
Compare software engineering master’s programs → -
A related degree plus experienceusually at least four years of full-time study, then self-study or a master’s
A degree in mathematics, engineering or another quantitative field, plus programming you can show. BLS lists no related work experience as typical for entry, so a portfolio and internships carry most of the weight. An online master’s in computer science is a common way to fill the gaps while working.
Compare online master’s in computer science programs →
Degree lengths: NCES, Digest of Education Statistics 2022, Appendix B: Definitions. Credits: the median of the programs in each ranking that state a credit total on their own page.
What employers expect
BLS’s typical entry requirements for software developers, BLS Employment Projections, occupation tables 1.2, 1.10 and 1.12, 2025-35.
- Typical entry education
- Bachelor’s degree
- Work experience in a related occupation
- None
- Typical on-the-job training
- None
What workers say a new hire needs
Share of surveyed workers in the occupation giving each answer, O*NET OnLine. Not a hiring requirement.
Programs to start with
The top two programs in each of our rankings, with the score and rank they carry there.
- San Jose State University #1 in our Bachelor’s in Software Engineering Score 87.0 of 100
- Florida Gulf Coast University #2 in our Bachelor’s in Software Engineering Score 85.2 of 100
- California State University-Long Beach #1 in our Computer Science Degrees for Software Engineers Score 94.1 of 100
- California State University-Fullerton #2 in our Computer Science Degrees for Software Engineers Score 93.0 of 100
- The University of Texas at Arlington #1 in Software Engineering Master’s Programs Score 86.9 of 100
- Arizona State University #2 in Software Engineering Master’s Programs Score 86.1 of 100
What the degree costs
IPEDS tuition, 2023–24, at the programs in our rankings: in-state undergraduate for bachelor’s, the school’s average graduate rate for master’s.
Tuition is before fees, housing and financial aid, and it is the school-wide IPEDS figure, so the price a student pays can differ widely from the sticker. Public schools charging in-state rates sit at the low end of the bachelor’s range.
For what the degree leads to, the software engineer salary report shows pay in every state, the top-paying metros and industries.
Software engineer pay and job outlook
Software Developers, BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2025-35.
Top-paying factors
Where the highest medians are, against the national median of $135,980. Each is a published median from the same release, not an estimate for any one person.
Software Developers, BLS OEWS, May 2025: state, metropolitan area and national industry-specific medians.
Half of software developers earned more than $135,980 in May 2025 and half earned less; the middle half fell between $105,210 and $171,980. California has the highest state median, $174,410. BLS publishes no pay by years of experience, so this guide gives the range, not a ladder of salaries. The software engineer salary report breaks pay down by state, metro and industry.
How the career moves
Typical stages. Titles and scope change by employer; BLS publishes no stages or pay by level.
-
Entry-level engineer
Software Engineer I · Associate Engineer · Junior Developer
Fix bugs and build small features under code review. Most of the learning is the codebase itself: how it is tested, deployed and monitored, and why it was built the way it was.
-
Software engineer
Software Engineer · Software Developer
Own features from design to release, review other people’s code and take a turn on call. You are trusted to work out the details of a task, not just carry it out.
-
Senior engineer
Senior Software Engineer
Design whole components or services, lead projects that cross teams and mentor newer engineers. Judgment about what not to build becomes as important as the code.
-
Staff, principal or manager
Staff Engineer · Principal Engineer · Engineering Manager
Here the path splits. Staff and principal engineers set technical direction across many teams; engineering managers hire, develop and organize the people who do the building.
Pros and cons
What people like about being a software engineer, and what wears on them.
What draws people in
- Pro: Pay well above most jobs: a median of $135,980, the second-highest of the computer occupations compared in this guide.
- Pro: Strong projected growth: 10.2% over 2025 to 2035, against 3.5% for all occupations.
- Pro: Skills that travel: the same work is needed in finance, insurance, research and government, not only at tech companies.
- Pro: A clear entry point: BLS lists no prior work experience and no on-the-job training as typical for entry, so a degree and a portfolio can be enough.
What to weigh first
- Con: A wide pay range: a tenth of software developers earn under $82,460, and first jobs are competitive.
- Con: Constant relearning: languages, frameworks and tools change every few years, and keeping up is part of the job.
- Con: On-call rotations, deadlines and production incidents can spill into evenings.
- Con: Long hours of screen work, much of it alone and in deep focus.
A day in the job
Illustrative: a composite day built from the job’s core tasks, not a record of one person’s day. Real days vary by team and employer.
- MorningA short stand-up with the team, then reviewing colleagues’ pull requests before starting on your own work.
- Late morningWorking through a new feature’s requirements with a product manager: what users need, and whether it fits the time and cost available.
- AfternoonWriting the code and its tests, then conferring with another engineer on how the change touches their part of the system.
- Late afternoonFixing a bug reported from production and adapting older code so it works with an upgraded library.
- End of dayUpdating the ticket and the design notes so the team knows where the work stands.
Five questions before you commit
If most of these get a yes, the job is likely a good match.
- Do you enjoy solving the same problem for hours?Much of the job is debugging: forming a theory, testing it, and trying again when it is wrong.
- Can you explain technical choices to people who are not engineers?Requirements come from product managers, designers and users, and trade-offs have to be explained back to them.
- Are you comfortable having your work reviewed?Nearly every change is read and critiqued by another engineer before it ships.
- Will you keep learning after the degree?The tools you use in your first job will not be the ones you use ten years later.
- Do you like building things other people use?The reward is seeing software you wrote solve someone’s problem, often at large scale.
Frequently asked questions
What does a software engineer do?
Software engineers analyze what users need, design software to meet it, write and test the code, and fix and improve it over time. O*NET’s top task for the occupation is to “Analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints.”
How much do software engineers make?
Software developers, the BLS occupation that includes software engineers, earned a median of $135,980 in May 2025. The 10th percentile was $82,460 and the 90th was $214,670.
What degree do you need to be a software engineer?
BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as typical for entry, usually in software engineering, computer science or a related field. Some people enter with other degrees or through self-study, but the bachelor’s is the standard route.
How much does a software engineering degree cost?
At the 75 bachelor’s programs in our ranking with a figure, the median in-state tuition for 2023–24 was $20,696 a year, ranging from $7,258 to $48,037. Those IPEDS figures are before fees, housing and financial aid.
How long does it take to become a software engineer?
The usual route is a bachelor’s degree, which NCES defines as usually at least four years of full-time study; the software engineering bachelor’s programs we rank require a median of 121 credits. BLS lists no work experience in a related occupation as typical for entry, so the degree is the main clock. With a bachelor’s in another field, a master’s takes generally one or two years of full-time study beyond the bachelor’s.
Is software engineering a good career?
On BLS’s figures it pays well and is growing: a median of $135,980 and projected growth of 10.2% from 2025 to 2035, against 3.5% for all occupations. Whether it suits you depends on whether you enjoy solving problems in code for long stretches.
Where do software engineers work?
Most work in computer systems design and related services or software publishers, but management of companies and enterprises, computing infrastructure providers, data processing and web hosting, banks and other credit intermediation and insurance carriers and related activities also employ large numbers, according to BLS industry data for May 2025.
What is the difference between a software engineer and a software developer?
In practice employers use the titles for overlapping work, and BLS counts both in one occupation, software developers. Some companies reserve “engineer” for roles with more system design; others use the two titles interchangeably.
References
Every figure on this page comes from one of these, read by the site’s data scripts and computed at build time, never typed in.
- 1 Software Developers, O*NET OnLine Task statements and reported job titles, quoted verbatim, and the education survey of workers in the occupation. O*NET OnLine, read 2026-10-06.
- 2 BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025: national, industry Software developers: employment, median and percentiles nationally, and employment and median in the 24 industries we checked. Read .
- 3 BLS Employment Projections, 2025-35 Projected employment change and annual openings, 2025 to 2035, for software developers and the related occupations.
- 4 BLS Employment Projections, occupation tables 1.2, 1.10 and 1.12, 2025-35 Table 1.2: BLS’s typical entry education, work experience and on-the-job training.
- 5 NCES, Digest of Education Statistics 2022, Appendix B: Definitions Definitions of the bachelor’s and master’s degree, including their usual length in full-time study.
- 6 NCES IPEDS IC2023_AY, 2023-24: undergraduate tuition for bachelor’s programs; for master’s, the school-wide average graduate tuition, which excludes program fees Tuition for the 75 ranked bachelor’s and 44 ranked master’s programs, the same figures the ranking pages show.