The Best Tech Skills To Have On Your Resume In 2015

There’s no better time to get into the software engineering industry.

Salaries hit an all-time high in the US last year, and there are plenty of free online classes and workshops to help you develop your skills.

Although it’s a fairly lucrative industry in general, there are some skills that pay off more than others. Whether you’re just starting out or already have experience, here are a few skills tech employers will likely be looking for in 2015.

DevOps experience

An increasing number of employers are seeking skilled developers that also have operations experience, Vik Nath, recruiting director for digital marketing and technology resourcing firm Mondo, tells Business Insider.

This is known as DevOps — a hybrid role that mixes strong developer experience with management skills.

“It’s a combination of a developer that still understands the systems administration side,” Nath says.

So what skills should you have on your resume for a DevOps position? Some of the most common tools and platforms that recruiters and employers look for include experience Amazon Web Services, Puppet, Chef, and CentOS.

Front-end designers and architects

Companies are most likely to spend money on front-end designers for apps and websites.

“Architects are always going to get paid the highest amounts, [those] involved in design versus development,” Nath says. “Looking at a website, someone needs to understand how it’s actually going to look on paper. Those are the [people] that are actually architecting it the way an architect would design a building.”

Cloud computing, Big Data, and mobile development

Those with DevOps experience typically earn the highest salaries, according to Nath, but many employers will also be seeking candidates for positions involving big data — think computer systems analysts and related jobs. Nath also expects many of Mondo’s clients to recruit cloud computing engineers this year, too.

Unsurprisingly, Android and iOS developers are expected to be in demand, and employers will be looking for those with experience with Objective C and Java-based languages. These are the languages used to build most iPhone and Android apps.

So how do the salaries compare?

Mondo couldn’t provide any hard data on how the salaries for different positions stack up just yet, but Nath was able to give us a few estimates.

A skilled mobile developer could earn anywhere between $130,000 and $140,000 annually, but a DevOps’ salary range would extend even further between $130,000 and $160,000. Nath says a front end architect would make something between $10,000 and $15,000 beyond that.
Read more: [BusinessInsider]