 In this video, I'm going to go over a lot of the important questions you might have about software development and the career of software developer, things like what software development is, what software developers do, their job satisfaction, salary, how to become one, job outlook, and the best places to live if you want to get into this field. Now, if you appreciate this video and you want me to make more like it, show your support by gently tapping that like button, hitting the subscribe button, and ringing the notification bell. And commenting down below helps as well. I don't have a big marketing team like most of the universities or news outlets. So for me to get my message out there, you have to like, subscribe, share, etc. Because it really helps a lot. Alright, so let's jump right into it. First of all, right off the bat, what exactly do they do? Well, according to Wikipedia, a computer programmer sometimes called a software developer, a programmer or more recently, a coder is a person who creates computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computers or to a generalist who writes computer programs and simply put software developers are those who write code in order to design computer applications or programs. The next thing I'm going to do is briefly talk about the work environment. So software developers, testers and quality assurance analysts held about 1.8 million jobs last year and the largest employers for these types of positions were computer systems design related services, manufacturing, software publishers, management of companies and enterprises and insurance carriers and related activities. Now developing software is almost always going to be a collaborative process. This means you're likely not going to be developing the software all on your own. You're going to be working within a team. So communication is a very important element of software development. But don't worry if you're an introvert. Usually you'll be on a small team and those are going to be the people you get used to and you're around all the time and you'll be communicating with them for the most part. So you're not going to have to meet new people all the time generally speaking. But with that being said, you will also be spending a ton of time alone in front of your computer typing away. So as a software developer, you'll of course be writing lines of code, but you'll also be updating and expanding existing programs, testing programs for bugs, and especially when you're teaching yourself, you're going to be spending a lot of time just looking things up online. According to the Holland Codes test, if you're familiar with that, software developers tend to be thinkers and organizers. Now, when it comes to job satisfaction, you'll see that generally speaking, job satisfaction is relatively good for software developers. And a lot of the reason for this is because they work in the technology industry, which tends to have very high job satisfaction. Companies pay really well. They treat their employees really well. There's a lot of opportunity. There's many different types of jobs and types of advancements that you can go into. And so even if you do end up in a job that you don't necessarily like, you are going to have the flexibility to switch jobs relatively easily. Now, according to career explorer.com, software engineers are about average when it comes to job satisfaction. But it really depends on what company you work for. And Glassdoor is a great resource for you to check this out. For instance, Kite string technical services has a 4.9 average rating from their employees, whereas Epic software development only has a 3.1. So job satisfaction is extremely subjective. And a lot of it is going to come down to the person as well as the situation that they're in. Some software related careers tend to have relatively low meaning. And what that means is they don't necessarily think that the career is positively impacting the world. So they're pretty happy in their career. You know, they're really happy with all the pay and the benefits and their day to day, but they don't necessarily think that the career gives them a lot of meaning. Next, we're going to talk about how to become a software developer. And whenever you're talking about technology related careers, this can get extremely complicated and many people are going to disagree. Some people are going to say you absolutely have to have a bachelor's at least in order to become a software developer or a software engineer. Others are going to say you don't need to get a degree at all and you can learn on your own. But with that being said, 86% of software developers have at least a bachelor level degree. So yes, it is possible to become a software developer without getting a bachelor's, but it's very difficult and most people are not able to do it. Now some would say that things are changing and it's less important to get a bachelor's. Others would say it's actually getting more important because the markets are getting a little bit more saturated. Also keep in mind this data is based on BLS and they don't specify whether the bachelor's is in computer science or something that's related to software development. It could be that many of these people got an English degree or a philosophy degree and then they decided to self teach themselves coding. But with that being said, generally speaking, it's probably a good idea for most people to get a bachelor's degree. If you're someone who's very good at teaching yourself, you're very proactive, you're an out of the box type thinker, then you could probably get away with doing a bootcamp or doing self teaching. Next, we're going to be talking about pay and the United States. And according to BLS, they make around $110,000 a year. Now if you compare this to all other computer related occupations, they make around $91,000 a year and all occupations in general make about $41,000. So they are making really good money, whether you compare it to other technology related careers or other careers in general. And of course you will make more or less depending on the industry you're in. So for instance, software publishers make around 124,000. Those who work in manufacturing make 119,000. Then there's management, computer system design, and insurance carriers and related activities. And most software developers work full time. Now according to Glassdoor, software developers make around $110,000 a year. So again, pretty close to BLS, they make really good money. Now when you look at the pay over a lifetime technology related careers make about $3.1 million. However, this is over the last 40 years. And the next 40 years, it's possible that technology related careers might even make more than that. So they could even possibly surpass engineering, which is currently number one. Now the job outlook is also very good. There's 1.8 million software developer jobs, and it's expected to grow at an absolutely astonishing 22% over the next 10 years. You can compare that to all other computer related occupations, which is 13%, which is good. And then all other occupations in general, which is 8%. Now when it comes to the risk of automation, WillRobotsTakeMyJob.com says that automation risk is around 37%. The polling says it's about 49%. And that's for software quality assurance analysts and testers. And for computer information research scientists, automation is about 4%. And the polling shows it's about 24%. So that's medium to low. And in my opinion, I do not believe this is ever going to be fully automated. There might be parts of it that are automated, but it's never going to be able to be fully automated. And if it is chances are none of us are going to have to be working anymore because robots are going to be doing everything for us. So it really doesn't matter either way. Now when it comes to some of the tasks that you might do on a day to day basis, there are obviously going to be quite a few of them. I'll have some of them pop up on the screen right now. So I'll just read a few of these off, analyze information to determine, recommend, and plan installation of new system or modification of an existing system, analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints. And I'll let you go ahead and read the rest. Some of the different technology and software you might have to use, I'm going to have those pop up on the screen right now as well. So there's going to be different configuration management software, for instance, different database management system software. And then some of the tools used, I'm going to have those pop up on the screen as well. So you've got the CPU, you've got computer systems, desktop computers, digital cameras, flash memory storage card, pretty standard stuff. And then some of the work activities you might do, I'm going to have those pop up on the screen as well and you can pause if you want to. So analyze project data to determine specifications or requirements, modify software programs to improve performance and supervise information, technology personnel, et cetera. And there are a ton of different certifications that you might get. I'll have some of them pop up on the screen that BLS and the government websites recommend. Now some of those certifications are going to be relatively advanced and they're only going to be good for you if you're going into certain specialties. But a general certification that I think would help you kind of dip your toe into this to see if it's something that you want to do professionally would be the Python for everyone certification that you can find on Coursera. And I will link that down in the description below. You can check it out. All right. So some of the best locations for software developers in the United States, that's where we're going to be going over now. When it comes to the amount of employment, the five best states to live in are going to be California, Texas, Washington, New York, and Virginia. And when it comes to the average mean wage, the best states are going to be California, Washington, Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island. So overall, when it comes to the amount of employment as well as your pay and probably the overall cost of living in general, Washington is going to be number one. Now the worst locations for software developers are going to be South Dakota, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Hawaii, and Alaska with Alaska being the absolute worst. Now with that being said, software developer is one of those jobs that you can do remotely. So you'd probably want to get employed by a company in one of those states, but you could pretty much live wherever you want. Gently tap that like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera that you have on the video. And I will see you next time.