Learning to code and practicing each day for hours in front of a computer screen, you must have wondered whether this hard work will pay off down the future alley or not. With more and more AI’s being researched, one can think that it's not long before AI’s get into software development as well and even before AI’s, there is a lot of competition out there, with everyone learning new technologies and languages. How will the software development future look like? Let’s take a look into the future.
To understand the future let’s look up the statistics of the Indian software industry up till now. The contribution of the industry to the Indian economy has risen dramatically in the past years. In fact, the contribution of the industry to the GDP of the country has risen from 1.2% in 1998 to 7.7% in 2017. While these statistics show a rather gigantic change, the most important thing to be kept in mind is that the phase from 90’s to present era is essentially the digitization phase. This phase marked the computers step into our homes and handle day to day tasks. With the rise in demand, there is always a need for regular supply and therefore the rise of the software industry.
The present situation is however slightly different. The digitization phase is almost at its end and now there has been a decline of placements and jobs in the development sector. The hype created by the digitization has gone and now the cut throat competition makes it harder to land a job in the desired sector of the IT industry. Sure, this is true if you compare it to the previous decade. But there is a difference between the last decade and this one as I earlier pointed out, there is no need of engineers like there was in the last decade and also the quantity of IT freshers each year also makes things hard.
So, what does the future for you look like? First of all, you need to know that there is no shortcut to success. And no, ‘Hard Work’ is not the key to success, ‘Smart Work’ is the real key. The projects to be handled in the IT industry are time bounded and therefore you need to be efficient and quick to excel in your field. Talking about the pay scale, freshers usually get 3-6 lakhs and it goes higher as you gather experience. Experienced professionals earn around 10-15 lakhs in a year. Also, qualifications also play a major role. An IT fresher with a Master’s degree is sure to get a job much faster and with a bigger pay scale as compared to a Bachelor’s fresher. Also, the trend for hard-core software developers from the past has now shifted. The popularity of the languages have a taken a big turn and now the languages which were once said to be the key to getting a good job have been trumped by other languages. Java, which had such popularity that every graduate wanted to be Sun Certified Java programmer now has fallen in the ranks of the popularity, still, it continues to be a popular language for software development but now it is not that big deal to be a Java programmer as it used to be. Nowadays, languages like C#, Python have taken a major leap in popularity. As the importance of cloud computing continues to grow, the number of cloud applications also continue to grow and hence the need for web developers as well. JavaScript, NodeJS and PHP are also very popular languages as the need for web developers to continue to grow.
Also, with the introduction of Big Data, ML and AI, there has been an upsurge in recruitment in these fields as well. While these fields support the idea of machines replacing humans for the work, but there will be a need for professionals to maintain and ensure the running of these systems. So, there will always be a need for professionals in this field always.
So, apart from the tips, there are a ton of opportunities out there for you and you just need the skills to grab them.
So overall, the future for software development is promising, provided you have the skills. As I said, there is no shortcut to success, so code on guys!
