The most recent software developers in the technology industry have paved the way for some of the highest-paying jobs in software development. From artificial intelligence to information systems and security, top positions for software developers are fascinating and highly rewarding. With the strong computer science and programming skills required, workers in the modern workforce can expect to earn excellent salaries and have plenty of potential for advancement. As computer technology continues to improve, the job market will evolve, providing new opportunities for highly skilled professionals.
As of June 2020, software development is currently the most sought-after category of jobs in the IT industry in Lagos. This is perhaps because there is a much higher demand for them than any of the other high-paying IT jobs in Nigeria. Lagos employers are paying high salaries because of the scarcity of experienced software developers in the country. Thus, when subsequent positional openings for software developers are put up on job sites these positions do not get filled up quickly unless new employers are willing to pay a decent fee. This industry in the country is therefore currently a seller’s market.
If you visit the current #1 job website in Nigeria – jobs.delon.ng that is focused a lot on IT jobs, you will always find different types of software developer positions remain unoccupied This clearly shows there is a growing demand which is not sufficiently matched with adequate supply at the moment. There are many types of jobs associated with software development. I will discuss a few of them as follows.
UI UX Designer Jobs in Nigeria
User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX) job is one major subject I love to talk about. It is a type of job in the software development industry in Nigeria that’s been gaining a lot of momentum lately. It is however unfortunate that most companies end up spending more time and money fixing poorly created software because they did not devote adequate time to the initial UI/UX design before the development team started coding. No matter how gifted and experienced your software coding team is, they will always run into problems if the UI/UX was not perfectly done at the beginning.
The difference between User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) is that while UI refers to the aesthetic elements by which people interact with a product, UX is all about the experience a user has when interacting with a product or service. So, UI focuses on visual interface elements such as typography, colors, menu bars, and more, while UX focuses on the user and their journey through the product.
UI/UX requires a lot of collaboration with the customer and the challenge is that some customers don’t have a clear idea of what they want and are not ready to exercise the required patience to go through this process. The onus is on the software developers to not only start coding but also show and direct the customer visually into what would represent a perfect idea of what they want. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the software development company to explain to the customer in detail the need for proper UI/UX work before coding. As more understanding of this role is gotten, there will be many new job opportunities for UI/UX designers in Nigeria in the next five years.
Software Developer Jobs in Nigeria
Software development today includes mobile app developers, web app developers, and desktop app, developers. But because of the advent of cloud computing and the massive growth of mobile technologies around the world, subsequently, the need for mobile and web developers has seen a major increase as well. Most companies are more aware of how having a good mobile app and user interactive websites can affect brand positioning in a growing competitive market. So people talk more about mobile and web development. Some Nigerian companies continue to require in-house software developers to help with several customizations on their off-the-shelf software, there will always be the need for traditional core software developers in Nigeria for the next five years.
Project Manager Jobs in Nigeria
Project managers, scrum masters, product managers, product owners, agile coaches, and software development managers are management or business-related roles associated with software development. They perform best when they have a technical background but there are also many efficient managers without a technical background. There have always been project managers in Nigeria, but the growth will come from the new agile frameworks. More companies will hire scrum masters, product owners, and agile coaches over the next five years.
Also, we have data engineers (sometimes called data scientists) who venture into several sub-areas including big data specialists, artificial intelligence, etc. It is an emerging field in Nigeria, but I am concerned that the professionals in the sub-industry talk more about the processing side than acquisition. There is still a whole lot to be exploited in this field due to the relatively little available database in Nigeria. There is not even definite data for censoring our population, crime rate and even real unemployment levels, etc.
Quality Assurance Jobs in Nigeria
Quality Assurance (QA) engineers are also not often talked about in Nigeria’s software development industry. Yet it is perhaps one of the major reasons why software products from the West tend to be less devoid of problems than local software products. For local software to become more successful, QA needs to be taken more seriously. So if you are a recent engineering graduate that loves coding but does not have the flair or skills in coding, QA is a good area to consider as there will be more jobs related to QA in the next few years.