A Career is software industry is what many aspire nowadays. The obvious reason for this trend is the ‘perks’ that this profession promises and provides. People from various other industries and disciplines are turning towards this profession for this single reason.

Reasons for preference:

There may be many reasons for a career in Software Industry but the following are the top reasons in my opinion.

- Money: Software Industry is one of the highest salary payers in the world of Careers. This factors makes everyone flock towards the same. With Shares of Software Companies making big in the market employees in Software Organizations are likely to become rich in near future. The same lures people other industries.
- Lure of Foreign Lands: With India being major supplier of software professionals the chances of going to foreign lands and earn more money plays a major motivation factor for Software Profession.

Though Software Developer is the most obvious role in Software, there are specialized areas in software industry like Software Testing, DB Administration, Configuration Management, Web Content Management, Documentation, Software Marketing, and Requirements definition. These jobs do not involve programming and involves different attitude towards the job. Functional Knowledge in Finance, Sales and other disciplines played a key role in defining requirements for ERP Applications. MBA in functional areas enabled many people to get into Requirements Definition job in Software Industry. Similarly other areas mentioned above also require different skills.

There are ample opportunities in Software Industry for people with different skills and not everyone needs to be a computer science graduate. I will explore various skills required for each job in next few articles.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS:

Anyone in Software Industry who is likely to write code is a software developer but may be called by various designations (engineers, consultants, System Analyst etc. may be the designations)

Qualifications:

Most preferred
         -  Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Discipline
         -  Master’s Degree in Computer Discipline
         -  MCA
Other preferences
         -  Engineering Degree with exposure to computers
         -  Any bachelor’s/Master’s degree with training on various programming languages

Because of the growing demand anyone with specialized training in software programming and exposure to software development can get into Software Developer role if they have engineering background.

Salary:

Based on qualifications entry-level salaries vary a lot in this field. Salary range from 5,000 Indian Rupees to more than 30,000 per month in some companies.

Demands on Software Developers

- Needs continuous upgrade of technical skills: With changing technology there is a continuous pressure on software professional to upgrade their skills to catch up. Trends change every year and one needs to constantly upgrade their skills.

- Change: Change is one constant phenomenon in Software Development Cycle which people should be comfortable with.

- Culture Shock: Surviving in a software industry needs a cultural understanding. Making a change from a manufacturing industry to oftware industry will certainly need a shift in cultural understanding.

- Technical Skills: Technical expertise in their chosen area is what distinguishes a software developer from others. One should aspire for high expertise in their respective field.

Send your comments and questions to cskishore@yahoo.com with subject: career guidance. Next week’s article will focus more on various expectations in software industry.