Android Developer / Engineer
Career Area: Information Technology
Occupation Group: Software Development
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Android Developer / Engineer earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $114,011
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $115,469
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Designs, builds, or improves mobile applications or apps for Android smart phones and mobile tablets. Oversees the entire software development process. Analyzes customer or user needs, designs programs, writes code, tests design, and documents programs.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 438 | +29.1% |
| Nationwide | 13299 | +25.6% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Android Developer / Engineer is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
- Creativity: Mental characteristic that allows a person to think outside of the box, which results in innovative or different approaches to a particular task.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Android: Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google, based on the Linux kernel and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
- Java: Java is a set of computer software and specifications developed by Sun Microsystems, which was later acquired by the Oracle Corporation, that provides a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment.
- Software Development: Software development is the process of computer programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications and frameworks resulting in a software product.
- Software Engineering: Working experience with the application of engineering to the development of software in a systematic method.
- Android Software Development Kit (SDK): Working experience of Android Software Development Kit (SDK), which is used for creating new applications for devices running the Android operating system. Applications are usually developed in Java (and/or Kotlin; or other such option) programming language using the Android software development kit.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Android Developer / Engineer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- JUnit: JUnit is a unit testing framework for the Java programming language.
- Test Driven Development (TDD): Working experience of Test Driven Development (TDD), which is a software development process that relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle: first the developer writes an (initially failing) automated test case that defines a desired improvement or new function, then produces the minimum amount of code to pass that test, and finally refactors the new code to acceptable standards.
- Spring Framework: The Spring Framework is an application framework and inversion of control container for the Java platform.
- Multithreading: Working experience of Multithreading. Multithreading is a type of execution model that allows multiple threads to exist within the context of a process such that they execute independently but share their process resources. A thread maintains a list of information relevant to its execution including the priority schedule, exception handlers, a set of CPU registers, and stack state in the address space of its hosting process.
- REST API Development: Working experience of REST API Development. REpresentational State Transfer (REST), or RESTful, web services provide interoperability between computer systems on the Internet. REST-compliant web services allow the requesting systems to access and manipulate textual representations of web resources by using a uniform and predefined set of stateless operations. Other kinds of web services, such as WSDL and SOAP, expose their own arbitrary sets of operations.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 14% |
| 3 to 5 years | 62% |
| 6 to 8 years | 19% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Android Developer
- Senior Android Developer
- Android Engineer
- Senior Android Engineer
- Android Mobile Developer
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