Career Spotlight: Software Developers
October 21, 2026If you enjoy working with computers, solving complex problems, and being on the frontier of new technologies, you may want to consider a career in software development.
Projected to grow 14.1% with 1,406 openings per year in Oregon and 106,100 openings per year nationally, job prospects are expected to be plentiful. Of those 1,406 annual openings, approximately 1,105 of them will be replacement openings, meaning that new jobseekers can expect a healthy number of entry level and intermediate level openings to fill. Though developers are employed across the state, 68% are employed in the Portland tri-county area, reflecting the presence of large tech firms concentrated in the region. See the table below for a regional breakdown of employment for software developers.
| Area | 2024 Employment | 2034 Employment | Change | %Change | Annual Growth Openings | Annual Replacement Openings | Total Annual Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oregon | 21,353 | 24,364 | 3,011 | 14.1% | 301 | 1,105 | 1,406 |
| Central Oregon | 774 | 922 | 148 | 19.1% | 15 | 41 | 56 |
| Columbia Basin | 360 | 478 | 118 | 32.8% | 12 | 20 | 32 |
| Columbia Gorge | 180 | 220 | 40 | 22.2% | 4 | 9 | 13 |
| East Cascades | 1,007 | 1,208 | 201 | 20.0% | 20 | 53 | 73 |
| Eastern Oregon | 399 | 524 | 125 | 31.3% | 13 | 22 | 35 |
| Eastern Six | 39 | 46 | 7 | 17.9% | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Lane | 819 | 977 | 158 | 19.3% | 16 | 43 | 59 |
| Linn-Benton | 476 | 562 | 86 | 18.1% | 9 | 25 | 34 |
| Mid-Valley | 1,361 | 1,609 | 248 | 18.2% | 25 | 72 | 97 |
| Northwest Oregon | 470 | 549 | 79 | 16.8% | 8 | 25 | 33 |
| Portland Tri-County | 14,532 | 16,876 | 2,344 | 16.1% | 234 | 760 | 994 |
| Rogue Valley | 399 | 458 | 59 | 14.8% | 6 | 21 | 27 |
| South Central | 53 | 66 | 13 | 24.5% | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Southwestern Oregon | 127 | 143 | 16 | 12.6% | 2 | 6 | 8 |
Software developers are employed across a variety of industries, with the largest being computer and electronic product manufacturing, computer systems design and related services, and publishing industries.
| Area | 10th Percentile | 25th Percentile | 50th Percentile (Median) | 75th Percentile | 90th Percentile | Average Hourly | Average Annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oregon (Statewide) | $41.06 | $55.23 | $70.54 | $84.32 | $105.53 | $73.67 | $153,231 |
| Central Oregon | $36.80 | $50.52 | $63.77 | $80.81 | $102.62 | $68.28 | $142,015 |
| Clackamas | $40.41 | $52.95 | $69.04 | $84.31 | $98.08 | $70.47 | $146,570 |
| Columbia Basin | $48.11 | $60.63 | $65.07 | $83.01 | $110.06 | $72.33 | $150,438 |
| Columbia Gorge | $40.16 | $54.21 | $64.24 | $81.48 | $104.38 | $68.47 | $142,419 |
| Douglas | $36.37 | $46.00 | $62.46 | $76.04 | $98.67 | $62.66 | $130,333 |
| East Cascades | $37.24 | $50.52 | $63.91 | $81.16 | $102.62 | $68.16 | $141,757 |
| Eastern Oregon | $44.41 | $57.66 | $65.07 | $82.19 | $110.06 | $70.21 | $146,032 |
| Eastern Six | $38.59 | $49.94 | $64.06 | $67.74 | $79.86 | $61.78 | $128,510 |
| Lane | $36.45 | $47.04 | $59.82 | $70.82 | $88.64 | $60.58 | $126,002 |
| Linn-Benton | $35.66 | $45.00 | $61.57 | $71.69 | $85.84 | $61.39 | $127,699 |
| Mid-Valley | $40.84 | $51.13 | $65.30 | $77.10 | $86.83 | $65.42 | $136,071 |
| Northwest Oregon | $35.58 | $47.75 | $62.59 | $77.10 | $86.83 | $63.18 | $131,411 |
| Portland Tri-County | $45.74 | $63.07 | $77.10 | $86.78 | $106.39 | $76.90 | $159,965 |
| Portland-Metro | $47.25 | $63.64 | $77.10 | $86.83 | $106.54 | $77.87 | $161,968 |
| Rogue Valley | $35.51 | $47.82 | $64.10 | $80.50 | $101.22 | $65.41 | $136,051 |
| South Central | $37.24 | $47.96 | $63.92 | $81.40 | $107.59 | $66.12 | $137,537 |
I spoke with two software developers working in different industries to gain an on-the-ground perspective. We spoke about their roles, how they became developers, what does or does not appeal to them about their careers, and where they see the future of the profession heading.
A Typical Day for a Developer
A software developer needs to be adept at programming, critical thinking, judgement and decision making, systems analysis, reading comprehension, and more. The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) reports the following as typical work activities for a developer:
- Monitoring computer system performance to ensure proper operation
- Managing information technology projects or system activities
- Developing test routines or procedures,
- Collaborating with others to determine design specifications or details
- Coordinating software or hardware installation
While these are some of the most common activities, a specific development role is likely to include many other processes in addition. Though there are commonalities across different occupations and industries, no one developer’s day will look the same.
“Working in a small team, I’m frequently talking with the other departments in the company: meeting with the CEO to figure out my priorities, talking with customer services about user issues, and working with marketing to explain upcoming software features to better inform customers,” said Joseph Weissig, Senior Software Engineer at Underwater Audio – a Corvallis-based technology company, where he started as an iOS developer. “But there’s also a lot of downtime, where I’m working independently or with a few people on software. There are a lot of emails and meetings, but I also get to live the fantasy of the ‘hacker in a hoodie’ coding for hours a day.”
“I work closely with my management and business partners to translate industry compliance topics to actual solutions,” said Matthew Zakrevsky, a Lead Software Engineer working in Information Technology at a Portland-based utility company. “I also spend time developing the talent on my team in addition to reviewing their work. I am moving more towards a solutions architect role for the team/department than a developer as I am doing less coding than I used to.”
What You Need To Know
Developers can begin their careers with a variety of experience and education, and some do not discover their passion for the field until later. While a four-year bachelor’s degree is typical for working developers and expected by many employers, some can find an early career opportunity with minimal experience.
“I kind of fell into this practice by chance,” said Weissig. “I have an unfinished CS (Computer Science) degree, but I put that on hold because of employment. Mind you, I didn’t have any experience with mobile app development at the time, but they were gracious enough to let me learn on the job.”
A typical part of a software developer’s job duties is continuing education, and one can expect to learn new things as they progress in their career. Even with a degree, the diversity of positions across varied industries means that supplemental on-the-job training is the norm. Zakrevsky graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science but feels that it is not enough, in and of itself, to meet today’s demands of those hiring developers.
“While helpful in laying the foundations, it has not been a one-to-one translation for the work I do. I have pursued other certifications for Amazon Web Services and self-led projects on the side,” said Zakrevsky. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a common certification for working developers, with 1.05 million unique AWS certified individuals, though there are thousands of other certificates and training programs outside of a degree for platforms including Microsoft Azure, Oracle Java SE, and Google Cloud Developer, among others. The specific certificate, platform, or programming language skills needed will vary depending on the role and industry in which a developer works.
Passion More Than Programming
No single developer works the same job, but they commonly monitor computer system performance, manage IT projects, develop testing routines, and collaborate with others to determine design specifications and details (O*NET). Though software developer jobs boast high salaries, each interviewee cited the opportunity for creativity, passion and interest in solving problems as the primary motivator for pursuing this career path.
“To be honest, I was bored,” said Zakrevsky, who identified problem-solving as his favorite element of the job. “When I first attended university, my original plan was to dual-major in English and German, aiming to teach internationally when I completed my degree. When I took my first English literature course, I enjoyed it, but I did not find it satisfying. Following some recommendations of others in my dorm, I took an introduction to C++ course and switched majors to Computer Science.”
“A lot of my time isn’t spent typing on a computer but instead putting pen to paper to try and solve an intricate problem,” said Weissig, who argued software development is, first and foremost, a creative profession. “My most impressive software has been about getting multiple devices to talk to each other wirelessly and being on both sides of those connections and seeing it all come together is what I imagine a conductor leading a grand orchestra feels like.”
The Human Element
Both interviewees cited the human element as the most challenging aspect of the job, more so than the complex systems problems each are regularly tasked with solving. Said Zakrevsky: “Translating business requirements to tangible solutions when the partners do not know what they want/need is often the hardest part of the job.”
“The biggest challenge is remembering that users are on the other side of my software, and they will not have the same expectations or knowledge that I do about my apps,” said Weissig, who described his early attempts at providing documentation to end-users, a task typical for developers. “We still got many calls and complaints from people telling us it wasn’t working like they wanted it to. To be a good software developer, you have to anticipate how people are going to use your software and make your processes accommodate that expectation. Nowadays, I use very little text and let the design of the app instruct our users how to operate it, and everything else I do my best to handle invisibly.”
AI: The Future Developer?
We discussed the future of software development as a profession, with particular concern for emerging technologies that could radically shape it. With more than $760 billion invested by the largest tech firms in the world into AI technology and research, Generative AI is thought to be the next big emerging technology that is shaping the tech industry. Generative AI, or Large Language Models (LLMs), are thought to play a large role in development workflows in the future, though opinions differed on the details of their use and the extent to which it would displace human developers.
“I think it’s impossible to be a software developer today and not have an opinion about LLMs (“AI”),” said Weissig. “My personal take is that LLMs are extremely interesting from a mathematical perspective, and I think they could even be useful tools to developers, especially those in smaller companies who have to do more of the development process independently.”
“It sounds cliché, but I see the profession moving towards Generative AI or Agentic software development,” said Zakrevsky. ‘Agentic’ here refers to a class of AI project focused on producing an ‘agent’ that can make decisions with minimal oversight through training via LLMs, according to IBM. Though optimization and workload reduction are both expected effects of the adoption of LLM technology by firms, both Zakrevsky and Weissig were skeptical of claims that Generative AI could replace developers entirely in the future.
“I do not see the outright replacement of all software developers with AI,” said Zakrevsky. “But I do see the shift towards developing solutions and applications with a focus on optimization of business processes through Generative AI. There will still be a need for software developers to create those agents and streamline operations.”
“I don’t believe they are suitable replacements to having a competent software developer employed in a company,” said Weissig, having experimented with LLMs in his role at Underwater Audio. “[LLM’s] are shockingly good when you’re asking very small, defined questions, but they fall apart with broader requests. Like humans, LLMs make mistakes, but they tend to make mistakes that are very different from the kind human developers are used to debugging, which can be time-consuming and frustrating to fix. At worst, they will make software that works but doesn’t handle special cases well and will fall apart when subjected to use from real humans.”
Parting Wisdom
The interviewees had some advice for future job seekers looking to break into software development. As the field varies across industries and sectors, the advice given was general and unspecified towards any single position or role.
Weissig offered the following guidance to burgeoning programmers:
- Don’t get discouraged by news of mass layoffs or “earth-shattering new tech” that’s going to break the industry, smaller businesses are less affected by the great waves made by the tech giants.
- If you’re just starting, try to find a niche that goes along with another hobby or interest of yours. If it’s health and fitness, there is so much happening in that space. If it’s gaming, some of the biggest games of the past few years have been developed by single-person studios. In college, I explored combining a computer science and apparel design program to see if there was a viable intersection between fashion and tech.
- Keeping up with industry trends is fine, but don’t get caught fretting over which programming language is “best to learn first.” The fundamentals that will make you a good developer are language-agnostic.
- When first learning, find a tutorial that has you build some kind of interactive project. Being able to watch input and output happen because of your code will motivate you like nothing else.
Zakrevsky had some general recommendations on how to approach a software development career and some likely expectations from employers:
- Seek internships while in college/university. Your grades do matter. Have fun though too, it will be the most freedom you will likely ever have.
- When faced with an issue, bring a solution and not a problem.
- You will almost never work 40 hours a week, it will either be more or less, but never exactly 40 hours.
- You will likely be part of an on-call rotation.
- At the end of the day, it’s about money. You would not be working otherwise.
- Learn how to use AI to augment your workflow. It’s the way the industry is going, but there will still be a need for developers who know how to write good code.
For more information about software developers or other careers, check out our Occupation Profiles tool on QualityInfo.org.