The Internet has connected senior developers, mid-level developers, and business people together, and creating lots of new ideas and businesses. It’s also drawn a lot of attention to software development. As a software engineer, I think it has mostly increased opportunities and career growth.
MVI, 20 years ago developed software with in-house mid-level developers. As they became experienced, they offered themselves as senior developers for more money. The impact on our business was dramatic turnover and MVI needed a better plan. To solve the issue, I found a senior developer, whom I liked very much, in Bangladesh, made him a partner and built an office around him. His team now has multiple senior developers and many mid-level developers, who speak and write English. We support 112 clients in the USA with many different technical services. (too many to list) We connect the offices from Dhaka to the Coral Springs via Skype, Base Camp, Text, email, phones, and multiple other systems, a seamless operation working from two locations satisfying our client’s needs.
I believe that there are two fundamental categories of software engineers: those who can build new, original, commercial-quality software- senior developers and those who are more focused on the front end, design solutions, marketing, and integration- mid-level developers.
In my 25 years, the demand for senior software engineers has never been met. Those who can do that style of commercial software development have been highly sought after and in demand throughout the last three decades. FaceBook, Amazon, and Google have a heavy need for and has been attracting them for 15 years. This has made senior software engineers scarce elsewhere, which in some ways has opened opportunities for the outsourced talented developer overseas. In that respect, it’s been a boon to senior developers overseas, giving them more and more opportunities than they would otherwise have had.
The Mid-level developer is much larger and somewhat easier to get into. I also believe that most CS bachelors holders and industry certificate holders are more likely to find work as mid-level, both because of a large number of jobs and general requirements. Many of the positions for mid-level are in IT departments of local businesses. Every industry and large businesses are going to need at least some mid-level developers. I believe that Silicon Valley hires some mid-level talent but not a significant amount.
