Understanding Software Engineer Roles

Software engineers build and create software, including large-scale and complex solutions for companies and organizations. Often, software engineers work on engineering teams with many different types of professionals, each working on a specific task or component of the process. If you want to begin a career in this field, explore a few of the software engineer roles you may encounter on a software engineering project and what kind of work each role entails. 

What is a software engineer?

A software engineer is a computer science professional who builds and maintains software solutions. The difference between a software engineer versus a software developer is that while both professionals work to create software, the engineer focuses on larger-scale, complex products, and software developers do more hands-on coding with a narrower focus on specific features or applications. Software engineers tend to have an overview of software systems and work to create infrastructure and systems that other developers can use, or that can scale easily as business needs grow. 

As a software engineer, you’ll work to understand the problem, design the solution your clients or organization will use, and create the necessary software. You’ll collaborate with other professionals to write, test, and deploy code, then apply the necessary testing and maintenance to your software after it’s ready for use. The other professionals you work with may form your software engineering team, a group of individuals all working together on the same software product. 

Your role on the team may vary depending on how large the team is and what kind of software you’re creating. For this reason, you can be a software engineer and have a more specialized role or job title. 

Software engineer salary and job outlook

The average annual salary for software engineers is $118,107 [1]. With bonuses, commissions, and additional pay, this amount could be closer to $162,314. As well as above-average pay, software engineers should enjoy a much faster-than-average employment growth rate over the coming decade. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that software developer, quality assurance analyst, and tester jobs—a category that includes software engineer roles—will grow by 17 percent from 2023 to 2033 [2]. 

What are software engineer roles? 

On a software engineering team, you can find many different specialized software engineer roles. These include full-stack developer, DevOps engineer, QA engineer, security engineer, cloud engineer, data engineer, mobile developer, and 3D graphics developer—although the exact makeup of any software engineering team depends on factors like the size of the company and the type of software they’re creating. 

*All annual base salary data is sourced from Glassdoor and does not include additional pay, such as commission and benefits.

Full-stack developer

Average annual salary in the US: $92,046

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 8 percent [3]

As a full-stack developer, you have the skills needed to work on both the front-end, or client-facing design side, and the back-end, or server-side, of a software, web, or other type of development project. This may include creating engaging and easy-to-use user interfaces; working with databases; coding in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; writing code with server-side languages like Python, Ruby, or PHP; working with front-end and back-end libraries and frameworks; and more. 

As a full-stack developer, you not only have a versatile set of skills to fill multiple roles on a development team, but you also have a holistic understanding of development that can make you a more talented developer on the front and back end because you have more insight into what each side needs to be successful. 

DevOps engineer

Average annual salary in the US: $109,163

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 17 percent [2]

DevOps is an abbreviation of development and operations, and a DevOps engineer role pulls from both of these fields to make a hybrid position where the person in charge of operations and infrastructure management has insight and experience in the software development process. By merging these two skill sets, you can oversee the operations of a software engineering team and employ the software development principles of continuous improvement and delivering value. In this role, you may also add a security focus and become a DevSecOps engineer. 

QA engineer

Average annual salary in the US: $92,379

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 17 percent [2]

As a quality assurance (QA) engineer, your primary focus will be on making sure the code is error-free with no bugs and meets all quality and compliance standards. You may work with a team of other quality analysts, depending on the size of the team, to test software in ways that mimic how the end user will use the software and make sure everything is smooth, easy to use, and operational. For example, you might test the software on different devices to make sure it works the same on a smartphone, tablet, and laptop. 

Security engineer

Average annual salary in the US: $137,315

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 33 percent [4]

As a security engineer on a software engineering team, your job is to protect software from security threats. A security engineer can work on other kinds of IT teams as well, such as working directly for an organization to keep its digital assets and data safe. As a security engineer, you will look for vulnerabilities, assess security risks, and develop plans to mitigate risk and respond in the event of a security breach. On a software engineering team, you may plan security for large software systems. 

Cloud engineer

Average annual salary in the US: $118,627

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 17 percent [2]

As a cloud engineer, your focus is using cloud computing effectively. On a software development team, this may mean selecting and integrating cloud-based solutions into your software to add increased features available over the cloud, or you may work to deploy the software you’re creating over the cloud for the end user to access. Cloud engineers can also work in other capacities, such as working directly with a company to deploy cloud services to support business processes. Examples of the kind of cloud-based services you may use include networks, servers, or storage. 

Data engineer

Average annual salary in the US: $106,420

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 36 percent [5]

As a data engineer, you construct the path that data takes from when you first capture it to where you’ll store it to how data professionals can draw from and interact with it. In this role, you use algorithms and machine learning, workflows, and data pipelines to ensure data scientists or other professionals can access their data in a usable and sustainable way. This might include a marketing professional who wants to make data-driven changes to their marketing strategy or a business intelligence analyst who wants to evaluate the business processes. 

Mobile developer

Average annual salary in the US: $96,741

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 8 percent [3]

As a mobile developer, you work on software development projects involving mobile apps. In this role, you need to know about mobile operating systems like Android and iOS. As a member of the software engineering team, the projects you work on may belong natively on mobile apps or you may work to create a mobile app for another development project, such as a website or cloud-based software. 

3D graphics developer

Average annual salary in the US: $88,215

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 17 percent [2]

A 3D graphics designer or developer creates computer-animated and three-dimensional digital art for use in software or video games. Similar roles like 3D modeler or 3D artist may have job opportunities outside of software development, such as creating models for 3D printing. On a software engineering team, you work to code the visual effects needed for engaging software programs. Particularly in rich visual fields like game development, you can find opportunities to create both realistic and fantasy digital creations. 

Explore software engineer roles on Coursera

As a software engineer, you can choose from a variety of software engineer roles within the field, depending on the size of the company and team and what kinds of projects you want to work on. To explore software engineering as a career, enroll in the IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate on Coursera to learn the job-ready skills you need.