You may have chosen to become a programmer because you enjoy coding. Perhaps reading elegant, well-indented functions gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling.
However, unless you are independently wealthy, one of the reasons you entered the development field was to make money. Therefore, you are probably concerned with increasing your software developer salary. And rightfully so.
Read on if you want to learn how to make more money as a developer.
Why are Software Engineers Highly Paid in India?
Thousands of bright and deserving candidates have been vying for the coveted position of Software Engineer over the last few years in India. As a result, software engineering is expected to be one of India’s most high-paying white-collar jobs in the coming years.
The salary of a Software Engineer/Developer in India is very high. According to Payscale, the average salary of a software engineer in India is Rs. 595,943 per year. Glassdoor reports the national average of software engineers in India is Rs. 6,65,000 per year.
When it comes to why software engineers are highly paid among other job roles in India, several cultural, demographic and natural gases play a role.
Reasons, why software engineers are highly paid in India are:
- A huge market for software and SaaS products. Motilal Oswal’s report predicts India’s SaaS market could chuck in $50-70 billion in revenue by 2030.Â
- Young and tech-savvy population (50% of India’s population is below 25) that predisposes them to software and development.
- A budding demand-supply balance for software products and software engineers.
- A thriving market for global outsourcing of software products and services. India alone commands a 55% share of the global software outsourcing market.Â
- Good grasp of English: A massive population of India is English-fluent, making them inherently ready for coding in universal languages such as Python, Java, C++, PHP and more, all of which are written in English.
- Love for STEM: coding being a STEM field, Indian’s finicky for science and maths make them natural learners.
- A cultural preference for maths and sciences: while it is tough to cite quantitative data on the precise preference for sciences amongst Indians, it is anecdotally and culturally evident that Indians prefer fields in maths and sciences. This factor makes coding a natural addition to the preference of a large number of people.
Ways to Increase Your Software Engineer Salary
The following tips will help you maximise your software developer salary in the long run, whether you’re an entry-level software engineer or have years of experience.
Choose a strategic specialisation
A basic rule for increasing your value as a programmer—and, by extension, your salary—is to specialise in a niche with a scarcity of qualified developers.
Consider mainframe programming as an example.
It may appear to be a specialised, out-of-date field. However, the average annual salary for a Mainframe Developer in India is 5.4 lakhs, with a salary range of 4.0 lakhs to 9.7 lakhs. Therefore, estimated salaries are based on 2.3k salaries from Mainframe Developers.
Consider whether you could excel in a niche with less competition before focusing on the most popular languages or platforms.
Keep learning
Even if you specialise in a specific field, it’s critical to keep your skillset flexible and up-to-date, especially if you plan on switching jobs to increase your salary.
Pay attention to popular languages or trends and make an effort to learn them. For example, if you know Rust, one of the hottest languages right now, you’ll be on your way to earning a median salary of INR 15,00,000 per year. That may surprise developers who graduated from computer science programs even a decade ago when Rust was barely mentioned.
Move companies
Getting a job at a different company is another way to increase your salary. Although this strategy isn’t widely used, many people believe that switching companies is the best way to increase pay.
Using your negotiating skills and explaining the benefits of hiring you to a company can result in a pay raise simply by switching companies.
Some people enjoy switching companies frequently to increase their pay. Others prefer to remain with the same company and work to improve it from within. While both approaches have advantages and disadvantages, it is common to get a better salary by moving.
But make sure you do your homework. Before leaving your current job, figure out if you’ll get a better salary. There’s no point in leaving for a better salary if it won’t be better for you.
Become a team leader
You might want to take a different path in your career and become a team leader. To become a team leader for software developers or software engineers, you’ll need experience, education, and various skills.
Some individuals excel as engineers or developers but not as team leaders. It’s an entirely different set of abilities. However, learning is not impossible.
To advance to the team leader position, you’ll need to learn how to work with people, make team-wide decisions, manage a team’s workload, and other people-related skills.
Don’t be concerned; all of this can be learned with time and practice. However, if you want to improve your salary, it is an option.
Learn more skills
There’s a good chance that improving your software development skills will improve your salary. This is due to several factors:
- You can complete more tasks that you couldn’t before.
- You can save your employer time and money by not having to hire or train someone else to complete some tasks.
- You can provide the employer with more value.
According to Payscale, software developers with Oracle database skills earn an 8% higher salary. Knowing UNIX, Linux, and PL/SQL will increase your salary by 6%, 4%, and 3%.
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The best part is that you don’t need to go to college to learn these skills, thanks to the rise of online education. Instead, taking an online course allows you to learn on your own time.
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