iOS 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 iOS Developer / Engineer earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $112,324
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $115,103
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Designs, builds, or improves mobile applications or apps for iOS 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 | 466 | +29.1% |
| Nationwide | 12450 | +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 iOS 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.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
- Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.
- 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:
- Swift (Programming Language): Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple Inc. for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux.
- Objective C: Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language.
- Software Engineering: Working experience with the application of engineering to the development of software in a systematic method.
- 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.
- Git: Git () is a version control system (VCS) for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people.
Distinguishing Skills
Any iOS Developer / Engineer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- 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.
- GitHub: Working experience of GitHub. GitHub is a web-based hosting service for version control using git. It is mostly used for computer code. It offers all of the distributed version control and source code management (SCM) functionality of Git as well as adding its own features.
- Cocoa: Working experience of Cocoa, which is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface (API) for their operating system macOS.
- CocoaPods: Working experience of CocoaPods, which is an application level dependency manager for the Objective-C, Swift and any other languages that run on the Objective-C runtime, such as RubyMotion, that provides a standard format for managing external libraries.
- iOS Tools: Working experience of iOS Tools, which refers to the development tools available for developing applications for the iOS mobile operating system - the operating system that presently powers many of Apple's mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
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 | 13% |
| 3 to 5 years | 65% |
| 6 to 8 years | 18% |
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:
- Ios Developer
- Senior Ios Developer
- Ios Engineer
- Senior Ios Engineer
- Senior Software Engineer, Ios - Remote In
Similar Occupations
If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles: