What Skills Do You Need to Be a Software Engineer? (2023 Guide)

If you want to become a Software Engineer, you’ll need to master the following technical software engineering skills:

Coding and computer programming

Even if it’s rare for Software Engineers to spend their days writing code, it’s a must for a variety of reasons for a good Software Engineer to be familiar with all of the same programming languages that a Web Developer would know, including Python, Java, C/C++ and Ruby, as well as other programming fundamentals such as data structures and algorithms.

Even someone with a computer science degree but without significant programming experience would be encouraged to attend a coding bootcamp if they were looking to become a Software Engineer.

Software testing

Even in the age of automation, understanding the ins and outs of software testing and debugging is one of the core technical skills required if you want to become a Software Engineer.

Though new AI programs can perform some of these tasks, testing is still a costly and time-consuming part of any software development project so becoming adept at performing these tasks is valuable to a Software Engineer. The testing process also relies on one of a Software Engineer’s soft skills: problem solving.

Object-oriented design (OOD)

An approach to software design that has continually gained in popularity over the last few decades, OOD is defined by key principles including abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, decomposition, and generalization. In simpler terms, it’s worth it for a Software Engineer to understand how to apply object-oriented design guidelines to create flexible, modular and reusable software.

Software development

It might seem odd at first to include this among Software Engineer skills, but Software Engineers are expected to be able to steer a software development team, and that’s difficult to do effectively without significant experience developing software. Software Engineers should hone their technical skills by working with real computer systems and developing real projects and programs.