Software Developer Career Path

In this tutorial, we will discuss how to crack our first software developer job. As a non-software field person, we should be very keen on planning and should prepare a proper roadmap to achieve our goal. Once you crack the first job and, subsequently, the next job, you need not work harder.

Lets see what are the different types of software companies.

Basically there are two types of software companies

1. Product Based Company
2. Service Based Company

1. Product Based Company: Product based companies are the companies which develop their own product and deliver. Few of the product based companies are Microsoft, Google, etc. In India, we have one of the great product based company is Zoho. 

Microsoft has its own products like Windows OS, MS Office, Azure Cloud, etc. Similarly, Google has its own software products, like Google Search, Android OS, GCP Cloud, etc.

2. Service-Based Companies: Service-based companies are the companies that do not have their own products; rather, they will take projects from other product companies and develop and deliver software. A few of the service-based companies in India are Infosys, Wipro, TCS, etc.
   
   We will focus on cracking the job in ‘Service Based Company’ for our first job. Compared to the 'Product-Based Company', getting a job in the 'Service-Based Company’ is relatively easy. Once we get into our first job, in the future if interested you can focus on Product Based Company.
   
   

Let's see how a software developer's career progresses.

In every company, there will be different types of roles and different role names, but here I'm generalizing.

Initially, a software developer starts his career as a ‘Junior Developer’. It usually lasts for 0–2 years. As a junior developer, we get a lot of things to learn, and as it's the first level, we should be more focused and ready to learn.

Next role will be ‘Developer’. It usually lasts for 2.5 to 4.5 years. It depends on the company. As a Developer we need to take more responsibility compared to ‘Junior Developer’. 

The next role will be ‘Senior Developer’. It usually spans 4.5 to 7 years. Again, it depends on the company. Every role depends on the skill; sometimes few people become senior developers just after 4 years, and few people become senior developers at 10 years. So, it depends on skill and performance. Senior Developer takes more responsibility when compared to ‘Developer’.

The ‘Junior Developer', 'Developer', and ‘Senior Developer’ will report to the ‘Team Leader’. The team leader is the head of the team. He or she will be responsible for all the happenings on the team. He is the face in front of managers. If any one of them is blocked in the team, then ‘Team Lead’ should rescue them. Usually, team leads span 8 to 12 years. Few people become team leaders early; for example, I became team leader unofficially with 5 years of experience and officially became leader with 6 years of experience.

After ‘Team Lead', there will be two paths. One is the ‘Management’ path, and the other is the ‘Technical’ path.

‘Management Path’ may lead to the CEO, whereas ‘Technical Path’ leads to ‘Architect’. Not everyone can become CEO, but they settle into one or another manager role. Sometimes it takes 30 years to become CEO. These roles are very different in every company. Few companies have ‘Architect1’, ‘Architect2’, etc.