Being a software developer in a post COVID-19 world
Tags: discuss, career
Published: 2020-05-29 14:06:13

The corona-virus pandemic will be remembered as one of the most significant events of this century. For better or worse every industry (including the technology industry) needs to adapt to this new reality. Here are some predictions how the industry will change and what it means to be a software developer in a post COVID world.

- Remote work will be the new norm
- Developer demands will increase significantly as more companies adopt online presence.
- Wide adoption of online education

### Remote work: the new norm

We have already been seeing a wide adoption of remote work for the past couple of years. The number of developers working remote jobs increased significantly since 2016. Remote/freelance job listing sites such as Upwork and RemoteOk have seen over 300% growth since 2016, which suggests that remote work culture was becoming the default in the technology industry. Moreover, many technology companies were already offering remote work options before the pandemic. Now COVID-19 has accelerated this adoption of remote work further. Corporations are realizing that they can save a significant amount on rents by allowing employees to work remotely.

### Demand for software developers will increase

Businesses that do not require physical interaction such as E commerce and digital service providers have seen a short term gain during the pandemic. Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix are the short term gainers. Such companies will try to scale their business and they will require more talented software engineers for that. On the other hand the companies that do not have a strong digital presence need to move to the digital space faster. Retailers for example need to adapt and move to e-commerce based services quickly if they want to keep their market share. They would require talented software engineers to do so. Some companies will re-organize their business. Uber for example has seen a drop in their ride-share business but has seen a significant increase in their food delivery service. For tech companies like Uber software engineers are their main assets who help the company adapt and reorganize. Therefore the demand for creative, innovative software engineers will increase in these companies.

### Rise of online education

The pandemic has forced universities and colleges to move their curriculum online. People are realizing that online education can be a cheaper alternative to the rising cost of education. Like many universities and community colleges, coding bootcamps are also moving online offering a cheaper alternative.
Software development is a profession of continuous learning. [Udemy](https://www.udemy.com/), [Linkedin learning](https://www.linkedin.com/learning), Udacity, [Freecodecamp](https://freecodecamp.org), [Coursera](https://www.coursera.org), [Edx](https://www.edx.org), [pluralsight](https://www.pluralsight.com/) are some of the popular platforms to learn new software engineering topics and advance your career. If you are a veteran developer you probably have taken an online course on any of these platforms. The materials in these sites are sufficient to set one up to start a career in software development. Many are choosing these platforms to become self taught software developers, especially ones who are switching careers. We have seen a surge in subscription to these services since the pandemic started and the online education trend will continue.

Do you agree/disagree with these predictions? Let me know in the comment section.