Software engineer / developer
Software engineers design, build and maintain the applications and systems that businesses and consumers rely on every day, from mobile banking apps to the backend services powering e-commerce. The role blends problem-solving, writing and reviewing code, and collaborating with product managers and designers to turn requirements into working software. Engineers typically specialize over time in front-end, back-end or full-stack work, and many rotate between feature development and maintaining existing systems.
Most developers enter the field through a four-year computer science or related degree, though coding bootcamps and self-taught portfolios are increasingly accepted, especially when paired with internships or open-source contributions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers earned a median annual wage of $130,160 in May 2023, with employment projected to grow 17 percent from 2023 to 2033 — much faster than the average for all occupations.
Site reliability engineer and platform engineer
SREs and platform engineers keep production systems running reliably at scale, applying software engineering discipline to operations problems such as uptime, latency and incident response. Their work includes building automated deployment pipelines, monitoring and alerting infrastructure, and writing runbooks so outages are resolved quickly and, ideally, prevented altogether. It suits engineers who enjoy systems thinking as much as coding.
The typical route runs through general software development or systems administration experience, followed by hands-on work with cloud platforms, containers and infrastructure-as-code tooling. BLS groups related work under computer network architects and systems administrators, reporting median wages of $130,390 and $95,360 respectively in May 2023, with steady demand tied to continued cloud migration.
Data engineer and machine learning engineer
Data engineers design the pipelines that move, clean and structure information so analysts and machine learning teams can use it reliably. This includes building and maintaining warehouses and lakehouses, orchestrating batch and streaming jobs, and ensuring data quality and security. BLS reports database administrators and architects earned a median of $101,860 in May 2023, with 8 percent projected growth through 2033, while broader data-engineering demand tracks enterprise data and AI adoption.
Machine learning engineers take research and turn it into production systems: training models, building feature pipelines, and deploying and monitoring models so predictions stay accurate over time. The role sits between data science and software engineering. BLS classifies related work under data scientists, who earned a median of $108,020 in May 2023 with an exceptionally strong 36 percent projected growth from 2023 to 2033.
Information security analyst and cloud architect
Security analysts protect an organization's networks, systems and data from breaches and attacks. Daily work includes monitoring for intrusions, running vulnerability assessments, responding to incidents and helping design security policy and training. BLS reports a median wage of $120,360 in May 2023 for information security analysts, with employment projected to grow 33 percent from 2023 to 2033 — among the fastest of any occupation BLS tracks.
Cloud architects design an organization's overall cloud strategy: choosing services, setting security and cost controls, and defining how applications are deployed across providers. It is a senior, cross-functional role usually reached after five or more years as a developer or systems engineer, often backed by vendor certifications. The closest BLS match, computer network architects, reported a median wage of $130,390 in May 2023 with 13 percent projected growth through 2033.
Product manager, UX designer and QA engineer
Product managers define what gets built and why, working across engineering, design and business teams to prioritize features and track outcomes; communication and market judgment matter as much as technical fluency. UX designers research user needs and design intuitive interfaces and workflows, typically entering through design degrees, human-computer interaction programs or portfolio-based hiring. QA and test engineers build the automated and manual testing practices that catch defects before release.
BLS folds QA analysts and testers into its software developer category (median $130,160, 17 percent growth), while web and digital interface designers — the closest match for UX — earned a median of $86,470 in May 2023 with 8 percent projected growth. Product management has no single BLS code and is commonly benchmarked against computer and information systems managers, who earned a median of $169,510 in May 2023.
Technical writer, embedded engineer and IT support specialist
Technical writers translate complex systems into clear documentation, API references and user guides, and typically enter from an English, journalism or computer science background paired with strong technical curiosity. Embedded and firmware engineers write low-level software that runs directly on hardware — in vehicles, medical devices and industrial equipment — and usually hold an electrical or computer engineering degree.
IT support specialists are often the most accessible entry point into tech, troubleshooting hardware, software and network issues for end users and building the foundation many engineers and analysts later stand on. Many employers accept an associate degree or a certification such as CompTIA A+ in place of a four-year degree, making it a realistic first step for career changers.
- Technical writer — median $80,050, +4% projected growth (BLS, May 2023)
- Embedded/firmware engineer — benchmarked to electrical and electronics engineers, median $109,010, +5% growth
- IT support specialist — median $59,660, +6% growth, a strong first step into the field