role
Software Developer
Review Software Developer role tasks, pay context, AI-impact notes, skill gaps, and cited evidence.
See my realistic path to Software DeveloperGrowing occupation - projected +15.8% through 2034.
The call: No certification is currently mapped to this role in Learnerside's cited data. Decide with the labor-market context below, and use the planner to compare adjacent roles that do have mapped credential paths. BLS lists Bachelor's degree as the typical entry education.
BLS projects Software developers - the occupation this role maps to - to grow 15.8% from 2024 to 2034. O*NET profiles the work as primarily Investigative (analytical, problem-digging) and Conventional (structured, detail-heavy). Weigh that against how you actually like to work.
What the numbers say about this work
Government occupation data for the role this maps to — Software Developers (SOC 15-1252). This is planning context for the occupation, not a salary or a job this role guarantees you.
- Median pay (occupation)
- $135,980 / yr · $82,460 to $214,670 (10th–90th percentile)
- Projected change (2024–34)
- +15.8% · ~115.2k openings/yr
- Typical entry education
- Bachelor's degree
BLS OEWS — occupation-level, national · checked BLS Employment Projections 2024–34 · checked This role has a high-confidence mapping to the listed O*NET-SOC/BLS occupation.
What it pays by metro
The national median hides a wide geographic spread. Below is the occupation’s median in some of the highest-paying and largest-employment metros, adjusted for local prices — regional price-level context, not take-home pay or a salary this role guarantees you.
| Metro | Nominal median | Cost-adjusted |
|---|---|---|
| San Jose, CA | $213,110 | $192,994 |
| San Francisco, CA | $186,640 | $161,435 |
| Boulder, CO | $164,560 | $156,423 |
| Manchester, NH | $162,090 | $153,412 |
| Boston, MA | $166,090 | $153,409 |
| Bridgeport, CT | $162,650 | $152,203 |
See all metros and how this is calculated → Sources: BLS OEWS (May 2025), occupation-level metro median ÷ BEA Regional Price Parities (2024, US=100).
What this work involves
The tasks the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET lists most central to this occupation — role-fit evidence to weigh against your background, not a measure of employer demand.
- 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.
Skills that matter
The skills O*NET rates most important for this occupation. A starting map for what to build — weigh it against the specific job you’re targeting.
- Critical Thinking
- Active Learning
- Reading Comprehension
- Active Listening
- Writing
- Speaking
- Monitoring
- Mathematics
What employers name in current openings
The skills and certifications most often named in a balanced sample of 1,096 public job postings from at least 101 employers and 4 source families. Treat it as a to-learn list — it is dated hiring language, not total demand, personal hiring odds, or salary.
Most-named skills
- Python 452
- AWS 371
- Software development 330
- TypeScript 328
- Kubernetes 306
- Java 284
- React 253
- API 242
- GCP 209
- GitHub 196
- Azure 194
- JavaScript 170
Certifications named
- Security+ 8
Compare what employers ask across roles → Qualitative employer-language sample only; do not use as official demand, market-size, salary, or certification ROI evidence.
Quick Verdict
Software Developer maps to BLS/OEWS occupation context Software Developers (SOC 15-1252), which has a national median of $135,980. Pay is occupation-level and location-driven - not caused by the job title or a certification. Below are the full cited labor-market context, the skills the role draws on, and the certification paths that map to it. This role has a high-confidence mapping to the listed O*NET-SOC/BLS occupation.
Fit Signals
- Investigative (6.05)
- Conventional (5.62)
- Realistic (3.61)
Skills & Tools
*Tools and technologies ONET associates with this occupation* - role-specific examples with ONET hot/in-demand flags, not employer requirements:
- Amazon Web Services AWS software (hot technology, in demand)
- Apache Kafka (hot technology, in demand)
- Atlassian JIRA (hot technology, in demand)
- C (hot technology, in demand)
- C# (hot technology, in demand)
- C++ (hot technology, in demand)
- Cascading style sheets CSS (hot technology, in demand)
- Docker (hot technology, in demand)
*Foundational ONET skills** (broadly shared across occupations, not unique to this role): Critical Thinking, Active Learning, Reading Comprehension, Active Listening, Writing, Speaking.
AI & this career
What we can — and can’t — tell you about AI and this role
Cited context only: an occupation-level outlook, descriptive usage data, an employer-language sample, and attributed research — kept separate. No Learnerside AI score, no automation timeline, no job-loss prediction. How we source this →
Occupation outlook · BLS
Where the occupation is projected to go
BLS projects Software developers at 15.8% employment change for 2024-2034, with 115.2 thousand annual openings. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · checked
A forecast, not a guarantee; occupation-level, not about you - and BLS does not model rapid AI adoption, so this is never an AI prediction.
How AI shows up in the work
Descriptive usage, not demand or loss
For this O*NET detail, the May 2026 usage sample reports 39.21% of Claude conversations augmenting the person's work and 60.79% automating a task. Anthropic · checked Anthropic Economic Index dataset, CC-BY.
Across all occupations the same dataset splits 51.4% augmentation / 48.6% automation (May 2026) — shown so a single role’s number is never read as an outlier.
Descriptive Claude usage data, not employment demand, not job loss, and not a personal forecast; CC-BY attribution required.
Employer language · sample
What a posting sample mentions
a sample of 102 postings (as of 2026-07-09) mentions these AI-related terms
Employer-language sample only; not official demand, market-size, salary, or certification ROI evidence.
Published research · attributed
What independent research says (not Learnerside’s claim)
- Eloundou et al. estimate that about 80% of U.S. workers have at least 10% of their work tasks exposed to large language model capabilities (Science 2024). American Association for the Advancement of Science · checked exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
- Eloundou et al. estimate that about 19% of U.S. workers have at least 50% of their work tasks exposed to large language model capabilities (Science 2024). American Association for the Advancement of Science · checked exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
- Eloundou et al. explicitly disclaim any forecast of AI adoption or timing, describing their measure as capability overlap with tasks rather than a prediction of job loss (Science 2024). American Association for the Advancement of Science · checked exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
- OECD reports that high-skill occupations are the most exposed to AI on task-overlap measures (OECD Employment Outlook 2023). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development · checked exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
- OECD reports that, as of 2023, there is little empirical evidence of negative employment effects from AI (OECD Employment Outlook 2023). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development · checked exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
- OECD and the AIOE research find that AI exposure and automation risk often run in opposite directions, with the most-exposed high-skill occupations tending to be the least at risk of automation. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development · checked exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
- Felten, Raj and Seamans construct an occupation-level AI Occupational Exposure index by linking AI capabilities to O*NET occupational abilities (Strategic Management Journal). Strategic Management Journal (Wiley) · checked exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
- Stanford Digital Economy Lab researchers find a roughly 16% relative decline in employment for workers ages 22-25 in the most AI-exposed occupations, based on high-frequency ADP payroll data (Canaries in the Coal Mine, working paper). Stanford Digital Economy Lab · checked correlational usage data, not proof.
- The ILO notes that AI-exposure indicators measure potential task overlap and cannot by themselves establish job loss (Workers' exposure to AI). International Labour Organization · checked exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
- The Anthropic Economic Index reports no measured systematic rise in unemployment attributable to AI in its usage data. Anthropic · checked correlational usage data, not proof.
Tier A research stays attributed and separate from BLS outlook and employer-language samples.
Core source records
This table lists the page’s core content records and when they were checked. Claim-specific citations appear beside the relevant text and may not be repeated here.
| ID | Supports | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| CIT-01 | Supports occupation-level wage context for Software Developer. | Software Developer BLS OEWS wage source | 2026-06-25T08:28:38+00:00 |
| CIT-02 | Supports occupation-level outlook context for Software Developer. | Software Developer BLS Employment Projections source | 2026-06-25T08:27:06+00:00 |
| CIT-03 | Supports skills, tasks, interests, and fit context for Software Developer. | Software Developer O*NET source | 2026-07-14T04:32:12+00:00 |
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