Different developer jobs

I've written a whole series of articles aimed at guiding people who are interested in programming in order to find out whether or not the job of developer interests them enough to start the adventure.

But I'm getting more and more requests about the differences between the various jobs surrounding development and programming, and it's true that I hadn't yet dedicated an article to it, especially since the subject is vast and can seem quite complex from the outside.

I tried to put together a list that is both fairly complete while remaining accessible to everyone. This list is not exhaustive and mainly focuses on the major families to head toward when you want to train.

Note that most of these jobs share many skills in common (logic, algorithms, languages, tools, etc.) and that for many of them, it's the environment on which the final result is deployed that differentiates them.

Software Developer

Since the term "software" refers to "a set of instructions that can be interpreted by a machine," all the jobs listed below could technically be called software developers.

But this expression is more often used to describe the development of client software known as "heavy" software, which refers to software that gets installed on your operating system (as opposed to "web" software, which doesn't need to be installed).

A software developer must know how to reproduce interfaces, manage the data entered by the user, and process this data through various algorithms in order to solve a problem or offer a feature to the end user.

There are as many types of software developers as there are languages, technologies, and platforms on which this software must run.

Video Game Developer

Video game developers are software developers who specialize in mastering tools specific to this field, such as using graphics or physics engines to create video game experiences.

Managing these tools generally requires a solid understanding of mathematics, particularly when developing 3D worlds, even though there are more and more game engines that simplify these calculations as much as possible.

Note that demand for video game developer profiles is the rarest among all the jobs on this list.

Mobile Developer

Just like a software developer, a mobile developer must learn to create solutions to meet a client need or to create entertaining, fun, educational experiences, etc.

The real difference lies in the execution platform, since mobile has very specific characteristics and constraints such as screen size, touch interaction, battery, processing power (less and less true), operating system, sensors, the store, etc.

Note that a mobile developer generally specializes in one platform, since developing applications on iOS or Android involves completely different tools and languages.

Web Developer

From the outside, there is sometimes confusion between the jobs of web developer and web designer, yet these two are very different: the web developer's goal is to bring the web designer's mockups to life.

A web developer doesn't need graphic design skills, even if they specialize in the visual part (called integration); their goal is, among other things, to reproduce with code the visuals created by the person in charge of design.

But their work doesn't stop there—they will also have to implement the features needed for the site to function properly (user management, content, data saving, etc.) using the server side and the database.

Some web developers specialize in web projects based on existing content management platforms (also called CMS, like WordPress), while others specialize in projects built from scratch.

If you're interested in how a website is designed, I recommend my article "The 8 Steps to Creating a Website or Web Application".

The distinctive feature of web technologies is that their evolution in recent years now makes it possible not only to create web content, but also games, mobile applications (Android and iOS), or client software (Windows, Mac, and Linux).

Front-End Web Developer

This branch of the web developer profession specializes in building all the visible parts of web projects, meaning design integration, animations, accessibility, adaptability to different screen sizes, but also navigation logic, data exchange, and validation, etc.

Back-End Web Developer

The back-end developer focuses on the submerged part of the iceberg by handling data processing and security, data storage and retrieval, calculations invisible to the user, and other complex algorithms, which often make up the innovative value of the product.

The languages, methods, and technologies used by back-end developers are very similar to those used by some software developers.

Full-Stack Web Developer

A full-stack developer is supposed to be able to handle the technical side of a web project from end to end (front-end, back-end, deployment), which requires learning and mastering a very wide range of technologies.

Many web developers start out as full-stack developers but end up specializing on one side or the other, since becoming an expert in all the technologies required to be full-stack is quite a feat.

Embedded Developer

An embedded developer mainly works with "low-level" technologies, meaning as close as possible to the electronic components, in order to create software that runs on devices with generally limited processing power or constraints related to mobility, battery life, etc.

We talk about embedded programming for devices such as connected objects (sensors, watches, etc.), onboard computers (cars, planes, etc.), certain industrial machines, and plenty of other electronic devices with limited performance that require precise programming specific to their hardware design.

And Many Others

There are many jobs that aren't classified as "developers" but whose skills require a certain knowledge of programming, whether to create, analyze, or deploy code.

System Administrator

A system administrator is a person in charge of designing, installing, configuring, improving, and maintaining the IT systems on which developers will work or deploy their applications.

Their areas of expertise focus on operating systems and networking, and even though they don't do "development" in the strict sense, they use their programming skills to create automation scripts to manage the creation or maintenance of the systems they deploy.

DevOps

A DevOps is generally a developer with a specialization in system administration, cloud, etc., who is able to set up the production environments for the applications developed and put in place the tools and infrastructure needed to ensure project deployments go as smoothly as possible.

Cybersecurity Analyst

Cybersecurity happens at different levels (hardware, software, human, etc.), and the knowledge of an expert in this field must not be limited to programming alone but also include system administration, networking, mathematics, cryptography, etc.

QA Tester

The job of QA (Quality Assurance) tester is often a career progression for developers, for people who care about code robustness and optimization.

Their role is to set up testing strategies, automated or not, based on a set of specifications, in order to verify that the software produced has no malfunctions or that any detected issues have been properly fixed.

Data Scientist

The effectiveness of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence systems (such as Machine Learning, for example) relies on the quality of the input data as well as the analysis of the output data.

The role of a Data Scientist is therefore to find or create solutions to rework data sets in order to extract meaning from them using computer tools or mathematical and statistical analysis.

Conclusion

Many of the basic knowledge and skills required to work in these jobs overlap, so it is absolutely not out of the question to move from one job to another later in your career, given enough motivation and time to train properly!