The 10 Most In-Demand Coding Skills For Software Engineers

From AWS and Google Cloud to React and Redux, here are ten of the most sought-after coding languages, frameworks and specialty skill employers are seeking from software engineers in 2021.

The Top Skills Software Engineers Need To Get Hired

Software engineer’s expertise with specific coding languages and frameworks is what sets engineers apart. The more specialized skill set that candidates have, the higher in-demand they are and the higher their salary tends to be, according to the new 2021 State of Software Engineers report by technology marketplace research firm Hired.

Hired examined data from 72,000 software engineer candidates and nearly 150,000 interview requests throughout 2020 to find the most sought-after IT software engineering skills employers are searching for today.

CRN breaks down ten of the most in-demand coding, frameworks, and other specialty skills in the technology world today that software engineers should know to land a top-notch job.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the top specialty skill employers are seeking in today’s market. AWS is eight-time more in demand compared to Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure skills, according to Hired. The Seattle-based public cloud kingpin has a slew of certifications and competencies for software engineers. As more businesses are turning to the cloud for digital transformation, IT professionals skilled on AWS are in very high demand.

Software engineers skilled in AWS lands candidates 2.7x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

Express.js

One of the hottest skills in high demand today is Express.js, a free and open source web application framework for Node.js. The Express.js framework provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications that only requires JavaScript, making it easy for engineers to build APIs and web apps. Dozens of popular frameworks are built on Express such as Blueprint, Feathers, Kraken, ItemsAPI and Sails.

Software engineers skilled in express.js lands candidates 2.4x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

Google Cloud

The COVID-19 global pandemic forced businesses across the globe to shift rapidly to the cloud to accommodate new remote workforces. Google Cloud is one of the big three public cloud leaders with Google offering a slew of high in-demand certifications for software engineers. In fact last year, a Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect generated the highest average annual salary of any IT certification in the market at $175,761.

Google Cloud software engineering skills land candidates 2.7x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

Go

One of the most popular coding languages in the world is Go, an open source programming language designed by Google aimed to make it easy to build simple and reliable software. In Hired’s last two reports, Google’s Go was the most in-demand coding language in the marketplace, landing candidates with Go expertise an average of 9 interview requests. Go is still currently the language with the highest demand of employers.

Software engineers skilled in Go lands candidates 2.3x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

Kubernetes

Software engineers skilled in Kubernetes are in very high demand from employers, Hired said, likely as a result of the increasing shift to the cloud and containers which has been accelerated further by the COVID-19 pandemic. Containerization is a major trend in software development as an alternative, or companion, to virtualization. Kubernetes allows developers to create applications that are more portable, better secured and can be faster deployed.

Software engineers skilled in Kubernetes lands candidates 2x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

React.js

React.js is one of the most in-demand framework skills employers are searching for software engineers for in 2021. React.js is an open source JavaScript library, also developed by Facebook, for building reusable user interfaces components that are used to build dynamic user interfaces for web applications. A React developer uses the open source React.js library to build interactive elements on websites and applications.

Software engineers skilled in React.js lands candidates 2.7x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

Redux.js

Software engineers proficient in the framework skill Redux.js saw the highest demand overall across all types of skills. Redux is a predictable state container designed to help software engineers write JavaScript applications that behave consistently across clients, servers, and native environments and are simple to test. While it‘s used as a state management tool with React, engineers can also use Redux.js with any other JavaScript framework or library.

Software engineers skilled in Redux.js lands candidates 2.9x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

Ruby / Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is a web application framework that incorporates the Ruby programming language for developing server-side, database-backed web applications. Some of the he world’s most popular and fastest growing applications were built with Ruby on Rails including Airbnb, Hulu, GitHub, SoundCloud, Twitch and Zendesk. In December 2020, Ruby 3.0 was released with improved performance, concurrency and typing.

Software engineers skilled in Ruby lands candidates 2.6x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

Sass

Sass [Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets] ranks in the top three programming languages with the highest demand from employers in 2021. Sass is completely compatible with all versions of CSS and is developed by a consortium of several tech companies along with hundreds of developers. Popular frameworks built with Sass include Bourbon, Compass and Susy.

Software engineers skilled in Sass land candidates 2.1x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.

Scala

Scala is among the most popular coding languages alongside Google Go in the market today, Hired says. Scala combines object-oriented and functional programming in one concise, high-level language. Scala’s static types help avoid bugs in complex applications, and its JVM and JavaScript runtimes lets software engineers build high-performance systems with easy access to huge ecosystems of libraries.

Software engineers skilled in Scala lands candidates 2.2x more interview requests than the marketplace average, according to Hired.