From remote working to talent shortages, trends are significantly impacting the skills and salaries of software engineers in 2022.
Learning and developing new skills whilst working is extremely common for software engineers, which also means that in-demand skills can shift considerably over a short period of time.
Knowing the top software engineer skills can help you to receive more interview requests and a higher salary…
But what are the top software engineer skills for 2022?
When looking at the scope of skills trends in software engineering, it can be common to look first at salary trends by market.
For example, the U.S. pays the highest salaries for software engineers overall, with Canada seeing the highest growth in average salaries (9.2% increase), with the UK seeing a 2.7% increase.
Remote working is also impacting the market in terms of both skills and salaries.
Remote salaries have grown across all markets between 2020 and 2021 according to Hired, with local salaries seeing a decrease – this can significantly impact the skills that are in high demand as there is some variance between remote versus local roles in terms of skillset.
The most in-demand skill in 2021 was Go, with software engineers proficient in Go receiving 1.8x more interview requests compared to the marketplace average.
This is the second year running that Go has taken the lead position for programming languages in the Hired annual survey.
Given Go’s popularity in large companies – the likes of PayPal, Netflix, Uber, Twitch, Slack – and its simplicity and efficiency in comparison to other programming languages, it’s no surprise that Go is still a highly coveted skill.
Go is also the 6th favourite language for software developers, relating to its useful and well-maintained libraries and packages, familiarity with the language, and the resources available for learning and development.
Interestingly, Go was also listed as the top skill for individual contributors, boosting demand from employers by 1.8x.
The ability to work independently and asynchronously is considered the most important skill to work successfully remotely for software developers.
Asynchronous communication – a type of communication where one person provides information, and there is a time lag before the recipients take in the information and offer their responses – is rising in popularity due to remote working.
For software engineers, being able to have communication that doesn’t happen in real-time means that remote teams can function efficiently without trying to work around different time zones and working hours.
This is a critical soft skill for hybrid and remote working environments, but specifically for software engineers that are often working with distributed teams.
Software engineers that are attuned to asynchronous communication have the benefit of contributing towards greater productivity by being able to take more time to consider their approach to a task or group activity.
Cloud computing is integral to the tech industry, as is the demand for technologies that can help people manage their architectures on the cloud.
Many of these technologies are built using Go (which is a strong factor in Go’s popularity as a skill and generally in IT) and are integral in managing workflows, generally across multiple operating systems.
Cloud-native applications are only going to increase in popularity as businesses look for more cost-effective ways to scale up, and cloud software also goes hand-in-hand with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science.
Though automation is a huge point of discussion (and concern) in software engineering, software testing and debugging are still extremely valuable technical skills for software engineers.
This also overlaps with key soft skills for software developers – problem-solving, analytical and logical reasoning, teamwork – and is a great core competency to have.
Though software testing is a job in its own right, software testing as a skill is vital for businesses.
Even though many AI programs can perform these tasks, this would be a very costly option for businesses to operate with rather than having a software engineer to go through the testing process instead.
Software engineering relies on strong communication, as software engineers are very rarely working in isolation.
This means that collaboration, team building and the ability to lead a team are all vital skills for software engineers.
Again, remote working plays a key role in the prominence of communication as a vital skill for software engineers – as with asynchronous communication, general communication skills are vital in keeping projects running smoothly and for deadlines to be met whilst respecting the boundaries of the team.
Many software engineers will also be expected to explain their work or reasoning, which requires an adaptability depending on the audience in order to convey information properly and effectively.
Considered by 55.1% of respondents to be one of the hottest trends to watch in the industry, AI, ML and big data are rising on the agenda.
At a time when AI/VR engineers are in such high demand, having skills around AI, ML and big data are considered an advantageous speciality skill set to have.
AI and big data go hand-in-hand due to the way in which AI evolves through massive amounts of data – to mature in terms of automated learning and scheduling and machine learning, AI algorithms need big data to adapt – and as big data grows larger and AI becomes more appealing to the wider world of business, both will rise on the agenda.
Remote and hybrid working continue to heavily impact the most in-demand skills, with soft skills such as communication becoming an even greater necessity for software developers to adapt to hybrid workforces.
Additionally, GoLang continues to grow and evolve as not only a highly-desirable skill but also a highly desirable area of learning for software developers – it can be expected that Go will continue to appear on the list of the most in-demand skills.
For software engineers in 2022, the main aim is to adapt to new ways of working and evolve with trends that have been emerging in the industry for some time, such as AI, big data, and cloud software.
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