All-in-one jobs site, Glassdoor, recently released their Top 50 Best Jobs report, and just as in 2019 and the year before, careers in technology are rising quickly in the global rankings of the hottest, highest-paid, most-in-demand jobs out there.
The Glassdoor report considers three factors for the Top 10 Tech Jobs: the number of job openings in that field, the average salary for that position, and the overall job satisfaction rating reported by those working in that career.
As you’ll see, there’s never been a better time to get a foot in the door of the tech world, and work towards one of these highly lucrative careers. In fact, the top seven best jobs on the list are all tech positions, with the other three jobs in the top ten competing comfortably against highly-paid non-tech positions as diverse as ‘Strategy Manager’, ‘Nurse’ and ‘Business Development Manager’.
Let’s take a look at which tech jobs are coming out tops in 2020.
# 10 Cloud Engineer
Companies everywhere are digitising their services at an unprecedented rate. However, the move from more traditional form of business operations to online technologies is not simple, and requires an expert who can install, set up, and maintain the machines necessary for these online cloud services. A Cloud Engineer makes this transition as seamless as possible: they deal with the technical aspects of migrating clients and companies onto the cloud, and use their knowledge of scripting, automation, and cloud technologies to make the move to cloud services and cloud-based operations easy-breezy.
# 9 Software Developer
At the number 9 spot, and taking a respectable 32nd best job in 2020, is the title of Software Developer. Software Devs work with a much more focused scope and specific tool set than their software engineer colleagues, and thanks to today’s app- and computer-filled world they enjoy an incredibly high number of job openings. As the 21st-century digital landscape expands, more and more software experts are required to build, maintain, and repair the complex coding creations we use every day. Software developers require a deep knowledge of one or more programming languages, and can work with many different frameworks to both create and maintain applications and programs – responsibilities that net them a very attractive annual salary.
# 8 Systems Engineer
Officially the 27th best job out there, Systems engineers claim the title of 8th best tech job. People in this field work with specialised systems that require specific kinds of software and hardware in sometimes very complex and demanding environments, for example production lines, airports, or control centres. Not only are these positions paid well, but the popularity of other streams of software and hardware specialisation means the niche career positions that systems engineers work in enjoy an increased amount of job security.
# 7 Software Engineer
Down a spot from last year’s Glassdoor rankings, the title of Software Engineer is still showing its value. The need for people who can create and maintain the programs we interact with on a daily basis is as clear as ever: simply put, software is everywhere. You can’t help but run into it no matter where you go or what you do. This omnipresence means that Software Engineers are a skilled professional in very high demand.
# 6 Data Engineer
Big Data is a buzzword we’ve all heard a dozen times, but for good reason: right now, thousands of companies across the globe are sitting on mountains of data from years of business that hold the key to better sales, more efficient operations, and considerable spikes in profitability. Data Engineers are the people these businesses rely upon to install and set up the hardware and software they need to start examining and interpreting that data.
Data Engineers need to have a great knowledge of data systems and the integration of both hardware and software into a company’s data needs. They don’t just know how to work with data, but also understand the systems and processes that this large-scale analysis requires, and how to work with these technologies.
# 5 DevOps Engineer
Slipped down, historically strong – has been a top ten contender, being number 2 last year.
Gareth Dwyer, software and operations developer at HyperonDev, explains that a DevOps engineer is ‘a software developer who also knows how to do server configuration and management, and therefore doesn’t rely on a system administrator for operating system, platform and hardware support.’ DevOps straddle deployment and network operations as well as scripting and coding.
# 4 Product Manager
Maintaining its position from last year, the position of Product Manager retains its title as a reliable top-contender in the list of best tech jobs. The strength of this position rests on its multifaceted ability to balance different worlds of business; both the technical side of tech, and the business-facing side of strategising, creating, marketing and selling quality products.
With so many new tech products on the market, companies need a technical, organised and logistics-driven employee who can manage it all. It’s essentially an organisational role that guides the strategy, roadmap and feature definition for either a product line or a product.
# 3 Data Scientist
While this has slipped a few places from last year’s best jobs rankings, the allure of large profits hidden in piles of data mean that Data Scientists still sit comfortably in the top three. After all, Data Scientists are the key to unlocking the meaning of that data.
Data Scientists are slightly different to Data Engineers in that they’re the ones who primarily crunch the numbers of the businesses they work with, and have a more hands-on role with analysing and interpreting data than with the hardware itself. One benefit of the job of Data Scientist (just like many other top tech jobs) is that it is at a lower risk for automation. Automation is likely to hit certain jobs hard: bookkeepers, for example, have a 97.6% chance of being automated.
# 2 Java Developer
A fast riser, this job title has skyrocketed into the top ten this year, reflecting a growing and hungry market for developers experienced in creating applications in this language. This reflects not only the global rise in demand for experienced java programmers, but also the growing ubiquity of applications and companies using Java for all kinds of legwork and features. As the Stack Overflow 2019 Developer survey states, Java has been the most popular programming language in the world for the past seven years in a row, in a trend that is likely to continue.
# 1 Front End Engineer
Up an eye-opening 4 places from its number 5 place last year, Front End Engineer has claimed the #1 spot for best tech job. And it’s easy to see why: their role is crucial to the constant and reliable operation of probably every website you use.
At its most basic, front-end engineers tend to write code that runs on a user’s browser, which translates into knowing HTML, CSS, JavaScript and various APIs. HTML, CSS and JavaScript are frequently used in the developer world. Check out this graph, which shows commonly used programming languages, from the 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey.
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