It’s a good time to be a software engineer; so says online recruitment firm Indeed.com. The company released its list of Best Jobs for 2017 today; software engineering and development posts dominated the top 25, and grabbed 7 out of the top 10 slots on the list. Indeed looked at both salary and demand (defined by number of job postings and growth in that number) in creating the rankings. It considered only jobs with a salary of at least $70,000 that had consistent growth in share of postings from 2013 to 2016.
Full stack developer, which boasts an average base salary of $110,770, came in at number one, with 641 postings per million in 2016 (a 122 percent growth in listings since 2013). But the highest salary honor goes to machine learning engineer, with an average base salary of $134,306.
A few non-software engineering jobs, along with some management positions, also made it into the top 25, along with one other completely unrelated career that’s always in demand: registered nurse, which came in at number 20. See details on the top ten overall jobs and top ten paying jobs below.
Top Ten Hot Jobs Ranked by Growth in Demand:
Rank | Job Title | Number of Postings per Million | Average Base Salary | Average Growth in Postings 2013-2016 |
1 | Full Stack Developer | 641 | $110,770 | 122% |
2 | Data Scientist | 360 | $129,938 | 108% |
3 | Development Operations Engineer | 731 | $123,165 | 106% |
4 | Salesforce Administrator | 80 | $89,702 | 103% |
5 | IT Engineer | 41 | $85,563 | 89% |
6 | Salesforce Developer | 230 | $108,089 | 83% |
7 | Quality Engineer | 311 | $71,111 | 83% |
8 | Digital Product Manager | 58 | $73,169 | 75% |
9 | Cloud Engineer | 217 | $118,878 | 67% |
10 | Management Consulting Analytics Manager | 47 | $90,994 | 66% |
Top Ten Hot Jobs Ranked by Salary:
Rank | Job Title | Number of Postings per Million | Average Base Salary | Average Growth in Postings 2013-2016 |
1 | Machine Learning Engineer | 58 | $134,306 | 36% |
2 | Data Scientist | 360 | $129,938 | 108% |
3 | Computer Vision Engineer | 20 | $127,849 | 34% |
4 | Development Operations Engineer | 731 | $123,165 | 106% |
5 | Cloud Engineer | 217 | $118,878 | 67% |
6 | Senior Audit Manager | 53 | $118,692 | 52% |
7 | Penetration Tester | 3l7 | $115,557 | 52% |
8 | Oracle HCM Manager | 44 | $113,107 | 41% |
9 | Full Stack Developer | 641 | $110,770 | 122% |
10 | Salesforce Developer | 230 | $108,089 | 83% |
Tekla S. Perry is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., she's been covering the people, companies, and technology that make Silicon Valley a special place for more than 40 years. An IEEE member, she holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Michigan State University.
