Software Developer

11.01 Computer and Information Sciences, General · SOC 15-1252

Software developers design, build and maintain the systems everything else runs on. ⚠ A median of $135,980 nationally and $130,980 in Florida, on a bachelor's degree, and among the highest-paid on this site — above every two-year route and behind only computer hardware engineering. ⚠⚠ It is a CHOICE path: no single major owns it. Counted degrees show computing majors supplying under a third of working developers and ENGINEERING supplying nearly as many. ⚠⚠⚠ And it is the only career here you can enter with no degree at all — about one developer in five has none.

Licensure and accreditation

⚠⚠ There is no licence, no board, no examination and no accreditation gate. Nothing in Florida law restricts who may call themselves a software developer or write software for money, and no certification is required by any employer as a matter of law. ⚠ That makes this the opposite of every health path on this site: the credential does not open the door, the demonstrated ability does. What employers actually screen on is a portfolio of working code, a technical interview, and increasingly a public repository history. ⚠⚠ A degree still matters, and the data says how: 85% of O*NET respondents name a bachelor's as the education required, and among professional developers surveyed by Stack Overflow 45.9% hold a bachelor's and 28.0% a master's. But 11.5% have some college and no degree and 5.1% finished at secondary school — so the degree is the usual route and demonstrably not the only one. ⚠⚠⚠ Read that as freedom with a catch: without the credential you must produce the evidence yourself, and the people who do it successfully are almost never the people who simply skipped the work.

What the work actually is

O*NET, on software developers: analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints; develop or direct software system testing or validation procedures, programming, or documentation; design, develop and modify software systems, using scientific analysis and mathematical models; modify existing software to correct errors, adapt it to new hardware, or upgrade interfaces and improve performance.

⚠ Notice how little of that is typing code. Most of a developer's working life is reading code somebody else wrote, deciding what a half-specified request actually means, and changing a running system without breaking it. The degree teaches you to write programs; the job is mostly about changing them.

Pay, and the Florida discount

O*NET (2024–34): 1,693,800 employed, growth much faster than average (7% or higher), 115,200 openings a year, median $135,980 (2025).
BLS OOH (2025–35, with QA analysts and testers): 1,905,400 jobs, 10% growth, +185,400. Developers $135,980; quality assurance analysts and testers $104,300.

⚠⚠ Florida pays less than the national figure, and the gap widens at the top. Florida's median is $130,980 against $135,980 nationally; the 10th percentile is $80,050 against $82,460; the 90th is $204,400 against $214,670. The spread matters more than the median here — the distance between the 10th and 90th percentile is about $124,000, far wider than any licensed path on this site, because nothing standardises what a developer is.

⚠⚠⚠ The major question, and what the counted data says

This is a CHOICE path: no programme admits you to it and no programme is required. So the useful question is what working developers actually studied. Census American Community Survey microdata, reported through Data USA for 2024, counts degrees held by people employed as software developers:

Field of degree	People	Share of the 2,019,249 employed
Computer and information sciences and support services	628,261	31%
⚠ Engineering	484,509	24%
Business	155,971	8%

⚠⚠⚠ Computing majors supply under a third of working software developers, and engineering supplies nearly as many. Those three fields together account for about 63% — the remaining third studied something else or did not finish a degree.

⚠ The source's own caution, and it matters: Data USA notes that this counts all academic degrees rather than one per person, so somebody with a computing bachelor's and an engineering master's appears in both rows, and ACS records a field of degree only for bachelor's holders. Treat these as the shape of the distribution, not as exact head counts. The shape is the finding: this occupation draws broadly, and it does not punish you for having studied engineering, mathematics or physics.

⚠⚠ And the thing that makes this path unlike every other on this site

Stack Overflow's 2025 survey of 36,705 professional developers reports formal education as follows: bachelor's 45.9%, master's 28.0%, some college with no degree 11.5%, professional degree 4.5%, secondary school 5.1%, associate degree 3.2%, primary school 0.8%.

⚠⚠⚠ Roughly one working developer in five holds no degree at all. There is no other career on this site where that is true — every health path ends at a licence, the trades end at a certificate, and law ends at a bar examination. Here the only gate is whether you can do the work.

⚠ Do not read that as “the degree is optional”. Three quarters of professional developers hold one, and it is what gets an interview when you have no track record. The honest framing is that the degree is a strong default and a poor excuse: it opens the first door, and after the first job nobody asks again.

⚠ On how developers actually learn, the same survey found technical documentation (67.8%) and other online resources (58.7%) ahead of online courses or certification (32.7%) and school (16.6%), with coding bootcamps at 5.2%. Bootcamps are a much smaller share of how people learn than their marketing suggests.

⚠⚠⚠ The Florida transfer trap: it is the SECOND programming course

If you start at a Florida state college and intend to finish a bachelor's, this is the single most important thing on this page.

The first programming course is widely and consistently carried at the 2000 level: COP 1000 (15 institutions), COP 2800 Java (15), COP 2360 C# (12), COP 2224 C++ (10). Data structures recovers at COP 3530 (11 institutions, colleges and universities alike).

⚠⚠ Between them is a hole. The second programming course — the one that takes you from syntax to objects, memory and program design — is carried under at least five different numbers, none of them by more than three institutions:

Number	Title	Carriers
COP 3014	Programming 2	3 — FAU, FSU, UWF
COP 3337	Computer Programming II	3 — FIU, Florida Poly, Santa Fe
COP 2510	Programming Concepts	2 — State College of Florida, USF
COP 4530	Data Structures	2 — FSU, USF
COP 3502	Computer Science I	1 — UCF

⚠⚠⚠ Every one of those is a 3000- or 4000-level number, and the college courses feeding them are at 2000 level. A Florida state-college student can complete two solid programming courses and arrive at a university that numbers its own second course upper-division — which a 2000-level course cannot substitute for. Ask your target university, in writing and before you register, which of its programming courses your college sequence satisfies. This is the question, and almost nobody asks it in time.

⚠ One piece of good news: MAD 2104 Discrete Mathematics is carried by 17 institutions — 71% of the carriers of its prefix, one of the best-travelling numbers in Florida computing. Take it at a college with confidence. So do MAC 2311 Calculus I and STA 2023 Statistics, at 39 institutions each.

⚠ What the destination actually tests

Because there is no licence, the hiring process is the gate, and it tests a narrow and predictable set of things:

Data structures and algorithms, under time pressure, out loud. This is what technical interviews are, and it is why COP 3530 is the most important course on this page.
One language, deeply, rather than six shallowly. Java, Python, C# and JavaScript all appear in Florida catalogues; the choice matters far less than the depth.
Version control and collaborative workflow. Often taught nowhere in a degree and assumed by every employer.
Reading a large unfamiliar codebase. The single biggest gap between graduates and the job, and the reason a contribution to an existing open-source project is worth more on a CV than another personal project.
Writing plainly. Design documents, incident notes and code review comments are most of a senior developer's output.

Advice

⚠⚠ If you are at a state college, resolve the second-course question now. Name your target university, get its computer science flowchart, and ask the department — not the general admissions office — which of its courses your COP sequence satisfies. Get the answer in writing.

⚠ If you are choosing a major, the counted data says you have room. Computing is the plurality, not the requirement, and engineering, mathematics and physics all supply large numbers of working developers. What none of them substitutes for is building things — the portfolio is what converts any major into this job.

⚠ If you are considering skipping the degree, be honest about the trade. One in five developers has no degree, so it is genuinely possible; it is also the harder road, and it is hardest at the very start, when you have neither a credential nor a track record. The people who do it have usually produced more visible work than the graduates have, not less.

And treat Florida's wage discount as a real number. $130,980 against $135,980 at the median is modest; the $10,000 gap at the 90th percentile is not, and it reflects where the highest-paying employers are. Remote work changes that calculation, and it is worth asking about explicitly rather than assuming.

Where people come from

There is no single required programme for this path. These are the fields students actually arrive from — each is a place in the catalog you can browse.

11.07Computer Science

Computer science proper. ⚠ In Florida this code is thinly used — only 4 public institutions award under it (Florida Poly 111, UNF 67, USF 54, UWF 33, 265 graduates in 2023). Most Florida computer science degrees are filed under 11.01 instead, which is why that is this path's primary anchor.

14.09Computer Engineering

Computer engineering — 9 Florida public institutions and 639 graduates. Included because the counted degree data puts ENGINEERING at 484,509 working software developers against computing's 628,261, and computer engineering is the closest of the engineering fields to this destination.

11.02Computer Programming

Computer programming — 26 Florida public institutions and 742 credentials, largely at state and technical colleges. Included because it is where much of the state's applied programming instruction actually sits, and because it is a realistic entry point rather than a lesser one.

27.05Statistics

Statistics. ⚠ A smaller but real feeder: mathematics and statistics graduates enter software development in numbers, and the Data USA counts place fields outside computing and engineering at roughly a third of the occupation.

Programs that lead here

A program is a field of study, one level above a degree — each page says which degrees it covers and which Florida institutions award them. ⚠ The count is institutions that awarded a credential in the field in 2023; it is not a promise that a school runs this exact degree, and it counts something different from the course-based list further down.

Computer Science 16 Florida schools

The route most employers picture — 16 Florida public institutions now that computer science is separated from information technology. ⚠ It is the default rather than the requirement: counted degrees put computing majors at under a third of working developers. ⚠⚠ Check its degrees note on the SECOND programming course, which is where a state-college sequence most often fails to transfer.

Information Technology 39 Florida schools

⚠ A real route and a much wider door: 39 Florida public institutions against 16 for computer science, and at most state and technical colleges it is the computing programme that actually exists nearby. ⚠⚠ It is lighter on algorithms and theory, which is what technical interviews test — so if you take this route, close that gap deliberately with data structures and your own projects.

Computer Engineering 10 Florida schools

⚠ A genuine route, not an approximation. Engineering supplies nearly as many working software developers as computing does, and computer engineering is the closest fit — the same data structures and systems courses, plus the hardware side. ⚠⚠ Worth choosing deliberately if embedded systems, firmware or hardware-adjacent work appeals; it is harder to move the other way later.

Data Science and Analytics 13 Florida schools

⚠ A route into a specific part of this work rather than the whole of it — machine-learning and data-platform engineering roles are software development jobs, and this programme reaches them. ⚠⚠ It is a narrower entry than computer science: if you are unsure which kind of developer you want to be, the broader degree keeps more doors open.

Careers similar to this one

Careers filed under the same broad field in the federal classification (COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCES AND SUPPORT SERVICES) — often they share early coursework, and each row says which group it is filed in. ⚠ Worth reading BEFORE you commit: switching between neighbours is cheap early and expensive late.

Cybersecurity Analyst Computer/Information Technology Administration and Management

Cybersecurity analysts defend an organisation's systems and data — hardening configurations, monitoring for intrusion, responding to incidents, testing defences by attacking them, and investigating breaches after the fact. ⚠ A median of $129,180 and 21% projected growth, the fastest of any computing path on this site. ⚠⚠⚠ And the thing nobody says in the advertising: this is NOT an entry-level field. The federal handbook is explicit that analysts typically arrive from systems administration, and a security credential with no operational experience behind it is the commonest disappointment in this job market. This page covers four related roles.

Database Administrator and Database Architect Computer Software and Media Applications

⚠⚠⚠ One job title and two occupations, moving in opposite directions. Database ADMINISTRATORS earn a $104,620 median and are projected at 0% growth over 2025-35; database ARCHITECTS earn $139,500 and are projected at +9% — with FEWER people and MORE annual openings. ⚠⚠ And Florida has no undergraduate database degree at all: the dedicated code produces 62 credentials a year and 61 are one UWF master's. So the specialism is assembled from courses, under seven competing statewide numbers in three different colleges.

Network and Systems Administrator Computer Systems Networking and Telecommunications

Network and systems administrators build and run the infrastructure everything else sits on — switches, routers and wireless, servers and virtualisation, directory services, cloud platforms, backup and monitoring. ⚠ A median of $99,130, reachable from an associate degree, at 56 Florida institutions — the widest computing footprint in the state. ⚠⚠⚠ But read the outlook honestly: this occupation is projected to DECLINE, and so is the support work below it. The growth is in the two rungs above. This page covers the whole ladder and says where to aim.

UX Designer and Web Developer Computer Software and Media Applications

⚠⚠⚠ Web and digital interface designers earn $104,000 against graphic designers' $62,960 — $41,040 for closely related skill pointed at screens rather than print, and BLS expects one to grow and the other to shrink. ⚠⚠ Florida awards 1,133 credentials in this CIP family and NOT ONE is a bachelor's, while BLS gives a bachelor's as the typical entry. The degree-holders came from somewhere else.

See every career in COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCES AND SUPPORT SERVICES →

Courses along this path

Selected, not exhaustive — the courses specific to this path plus the foundations it is built on. A course number does not identify a course in Florida: always check your own institution's catalog and take a syllabus to an adviser.

COP1000 —Introduction to Computer Programming Request a guide

Introduction to Computer Programming — 15 institutions, the most widely carried first programming course in the state. Where you find out whether you like this at all, which is worth knowing cheaply.

⚠ ⚠ Language varies by college and matters less than you think. What matters is that this is a genuine programming course rather than CGS1100 Applications for Business (14 institutions), which teaches spreadsheets and word processing and is not a step toward this career.

COP2800 —Java Programming Request a guide

Programming with Java — 15 institutions, tied for the most widely carried. Java remains the language most Florida colleges teach the first serious course in, and it is well represented in Florida employers.

⚠ ⚠ Also carried as COP2250 Java Programming at 8 institutions — the same subject under a second number. ⚠⚠ Check which one your target university's articulation names, because they are not interchangeable in a requirement check.

COP2224 —Programming in C++ Request a guide

Introduction to C++ Programming — 10 institutions. The alternative first-language route, and the better one if you are heading toward systems, embedded or games work.

⚠ ⚠ C++ is harder as a first language and teaches memory management that Java and Python hide. That is a real advantage later and a real cost now.

COP2360 —C# Programming Request a guide

C# Programming — 12 institutions. Widely taught in Florida and heavily used by the state's enterprise, defence and simulation employers.

COP3014 —Programming 2 Request a guide

Programming 2 — 3 institutions. ⚠⚠⚠ Listed to make the transfer trap visible: this is FAU's, FSU's and UWF's second programming course, it is at 3000 level, and a 2000-level college course cannot supply upper-division credit for it.

⚠ ⚠⚠⚠ The second programming course is the fracture point in Florida computing. It runs as COP3014 (3 institutions), COP3337 (3), COP2510 (2), COP4530 (2) and COP3502 (1) — five numbers, none carried by more than three. ⚠ Ask your target university's DEPARTMENT, in writing, which of its courses your college sequence satisfies, before you register for the college one.

COP3337 —Computer Programming II Request a guide

Computer Programming II — 3 institutions (FIU, Florida Poly, Santa Fe). The same second course under a different number, and evidence that the fragmentation is real rather than an artefact.

⚠ ⚠ Santa Fe College carries this 3000-level number as a state college with baccalaureate authority — so the sector does not reliably predict the level here.

COP3530 —Data Structures Request a guide

Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis — 11 institutions, colleges and universities alike. ⚠⚠ The single most important course on this page: it is what technical interviews test, and it is the best-travelling upper-division computing number in the state.

⚠ ⚠ Also carried as COP4530 at FSU and USF. ⚠⚠ Do not treat this as a box to tick — the material is the hiring filter for this occupation, and it rewards being learned properly rather than passed.

MAD2104 —Discrete Mathematics Guide

Discrete Mathematics — 17 institutions, and 71% of its prefix's carriers: one of the best-travelling numbers in Florida computing. Logic, proof, sets, graphs and combinatorics, which is the mathematics computer science actually uses.

⚠ ✅ Take this at a state college with confidence — it transfers more reliably than almost anything else in this discipline.

MAC2311 —Calculus I Guide

Calculus I with Analytic Geometry — 39 institutions. Required by essentially every Florida computer science and computer engineering bachelor's, and the usual gate on admission to the major.

⚠ ⚠ Required for the degree rather than used daily in the job. It is nonetheless the prerequisite most likely to delay a computing student, so take it early and take it seriously.

STA2023 —Elementary Statistics Guide

Elementary Statistics — 39 institutions. Increasingly not optional: testing, experimentation, performance measurement and anything touching machine learning all rest on it.

CDA3103 —Fundamentals of Computer Systems Request a guide

Fundamentals of Computer Systems — 2 institutions. Machine representation, assembly and how a processor actually executes your code — the layer beneath the language, and a common gap in self-taught developers.

⚠ ⚠ Carried under this number at only FIU and USF, but taught at every computer science programme under some number. ⚠⚠ Universities rarely accept a college substitute for this one; expect to take it after transfer.

CEN3031 —Software Engng Fundamentals Guide

Software Engineering Fundamentals — 3 institutions (FGCU, UF, UWF). Requirements, design, testing and working in a team on a codebase you did not write — which is what the job is, and what most programming courses never cover.

⚠ ⚠ The team project in this course is often the closest thing a degree contains to actual professional practice. Where your programme offers one, weight it heavily.

CIS2321 —Systems Analysis and Design Request a guide

Systems Analysis and Design — 12 institutions. Turning a half-stated business problem into a specification, which O*NET lists first among a developer's tasks and which most graduates have never practised.

⚠ ⚠ Common in information-technology and information-systems degrees and often absent from computer science ones. If your programme does not require it, it is a good elective.

ENC1101 —English Composition I Guide

English Composition I — 39 institutions. Design documents, incident reports and code review comments are most of a senior developer's written output, and the ones who write clearly get promoted.

Where you can take these courses in Florida

39 Florida public institutions teach courses on this path. The count is how many of the 14 listed courses each one carries — it shows where the path is best covered. It is not a statement that a school offers this as a degree; for that, check the institution’s own programme list.

EFSC

Eastern Florida State College

9 of 14

Hillsborough College

9 of 14

PBSC

Palm Beach State College

9 of 14

DSC

Daytona State College

8 of 14

FIU

Florida International University

8 of 14

PSC

Polk State College

8 of 14

SSCF

Seminole State College of Florida

8 of 14

SPC

St. Petersburg College

8 of 14

FSWSC

Florida Southwestern State College

7 of 14

NWFSC

Northwest Florida State College

7 of 14

SJRSC

St. Johns River State College

7 of 14

FLPOLY

Florida Polytechnic University

6 of 14

GCSC

Gulf Coast State College

6 of 14

LSSC

Lake-Sumter State College

6 of 14

MDC

Miami Dade College

6 of 14

PESC

Pensacola State College

6 of 14

SCFMS

State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota

6 of 14

University of Florida

6 of 14

UWF

University of West Florida

6 of 14

College of Central Florida

5 of 14

FAU

Florida Atlantic University

5 of 14

FGCU

Florida Gulf Coast University

5 of 14

FSU

Florida State University

5 of 14

IRSC

Indian River State College

5 of 14

PHSC

Pasco-Hernando State College

5 of 14

SFSC

South Florida State College

5 of 14

TSC

Tallahassee State College

5 of 14

USF

University of South Florida

5 of 14

Broward College

4 of 14

FAMU

Florida A & M University

4 of 14

FGC

Florida Gateway College

4 of 14

SFC

Santa FE College

4 of 14

UCF

University of Central Florida

4 of 14

UNF

University of North Florida

4 of 14

FSCJ

Florida State College at Jacksonville

3 of 14

NCF

New College of Florida

3 of 14

NFC

North Florida College

3 of 14

CFK

The College of the Florida Keys

3 of 14

Valencia College

3 of 14

Sources

Requirements change. These are the authorities that decide them — check them directly before committing to a route.

O*NET — Software Developers (15-1252.00) — Task statements, 1,693,800 employed, growth much faster than average (7% or higher) on the 2024–34 projections, 115,200 annual openings, median wages $135,980 (2025), and the education split: 85% bachelor's, 5% associate, 5% master's.
O*NET — Florida wages, Software Developers — ⚠ Florida pays below the national figure and the gap widens at the top: Florida median $130,980 against $135,980, 10th percentile $80,050 against $82,460, 90th percentile $204,400 against $214,670.
BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — Software Developers, QA Analysts and Testers — 1,905,400 jobs (2025), 10% growth 2025–35, +185,400, entry a bachelor's degree. ⚠ It separates the two occupations the page covers: developers $135,980, quality assurance analysts and testers $104,300. It says a degree in computer and information technology 'or a related field, such as engineering or mathematics'.
Data USA — Software Developers, degree fields (US Census ACS PUMS, 2024) — ⚠⚠⚠ The counted entrant-major evidence this page turns on: of 2,019,249 employed, computer and information sciences 628,261, ENGINEERING 484,509, business 155,971. ⚠ The source's own caution: this counts all academic degrees rather than one per person, and ACS records a field of degree only for bachelor's holders — so read the shape, not the head count.
Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025 — education and learning — ⚠⚠ Formal education among 36,705 professional developers: bachelor's 45.9%, master's 28.0%, some college with no degree 11.5%, secondary school 5.1%, associate 3.2%, professional degree 4.5% — so roughly one in five holds no degree. Learning methods: technical documentation 67.8%, online resources 58.7%, online courses 32.7%, school 16.6%, coding bootcamp 5.2%.
IPEDS Completions 2023 (C2023_A) — Florida computing CIPs — ⚠ Where Florida actually files these degrees: computer and information sciences general (11.0101) 15 institutions and 3,047 graduates, information technology (11.0103) 36 and 2,924, computer programming (11.02) 26 and 742 — against computer science proper (11.0701) at only 4 institutions and 265. Computer engineering (14.0901) 9 institutions, 639.
SCNS statewide course file and flat file — ⚠⚠⚠ The transfer trap measured: the first programming course is well carried at 2000 level (COP1000 and COP2800 at 15 institutions each), data structures recovers at COP3530 (11), but the SECOND programming course runs as COP3014 (3), COP3337 (3), COP2510 (2), COP4530 (2) and COP3502 (1) — all upper-division numbers. ✅ MAD2104 Discrete Mathematics is the exception at 17 institutions, 71% of its prefix's carriers.

Last updated 23 September 2026.