Many non-tech people think a software engineer and a web developer are the same. However, there are key differences in their jobs and career paths. To enter the tech industry, you need to know the differences between a software engineer and a web developer.
Beyond salary differences, these positions focus on different:
• Technology fields
• Career and freelance opportunities
• Education paths
Before you decide which role you want, let's discuss some differences between software engineers and web developers to help you make a decision.
What are the Salaries for Software Engineers & Web Developers?
Let's start our discussion with the topic everyone wants to know - how much does each position make? When examining the average salaries and overall salary potential, software engineers outperform web developers. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, software engineers' average median annual salary in 2021 was $109,020.
Web developers saw lower median annual salary of $78,300. As we will see later, this salary margin is driven by higher education requirements and the need for deeper and broader technical understanding.
What are the Education Requirements?
One of the main factors for salary differences between software engineers and web developers is the developer's skills and broader understanding of software engineering. The education requirements for a software engineer usually include obtaining a bachelor's degree in computer science. This four-year university degree includes theoretical and practical coding-focused courses.
Stanford's course and requirement overview page shows that computer science students must take general STEM classes like Calculus and Mathematics in Computer Science. They will also need hands-on hardware classes such as Introductory Electronics. These prerequisite classes go far beyond the topics covered in many bootcamps.
When you add in other theoretical classes such as Principles of Computer Systems and Mathematical Foundations of Computing, it is clear that a 4-year degree offers students a deep, theoretical understanding of the field. While having this base is great, it is optional to be able to succeed in day-to-day software development.
This is why bootcamps offer an alternative to students who want to get into software development without the 4-year time commitment. While traditional computer science students spend four years learning software engineering, web developers obtain their skills in a much shorter time.
The standard web development engineering bootcamp is 12 weeks long. These camps compress a lot of learning because they are heavily practical instead of theoretical.
You may not learn to build and optimize a database language, but you will explore topics such as:
• UI and UX functioning
• API building
• Webpage styling
• Web app developing
• General software testing
These topics make web developers viable candidates for website and web app-based work. Longer-than-average bootcamps offer an even more excellent opportunity to expand your practical skills and theoretical knowledge of software engineering.
Though web developers have a lower barrier to entry, they may have a more difficult time growing into more technical roles. There is a lot of overlap between a junior software engineer and web development positions, but this changes when moving into more senior positions. Many senior software positions require a computer science degree and may even require master's or Ph.D. degrees.
While a web developer can progress to a software engineer, this process is very time intensive and requires dedication and self-study. The overall technical understanding gained from a four-year degree is a factor for higher compensation and job options for software engineers.
What Kind of Software and Web Jobs can I Get?
Beyond traditional software engineering roles, software engineers and web developers can move into positions like:
• Full Stack Software Engineer
• SDET (software development engineer in test)
• Video Game Developer
• Security Engineer
• Integrations Engineer
• Network Engineer
• DevOps Engineer
• Data Science Engineer
As discussed in the education section, having a computer science degree is an advantage for software engineers.
It's not that software engineers are the only talent pipeline for many popular developer positions, but they've been trained to pick up different tech skills. Software development is the art of combining technical understanding with business logic and creative solutions. Having theoretical knowledge of how the software works makes the process much simpler for software engineers.
Web developers may have some fundamental skills related to these positions, such as:
• Understanding data structures and algorithms
• Knowing client-server communications
• Comprehending web app security
These fundamental skills and teachings differ from a foundational understanding of computer science. Therefore, it can limit how a web developer can move between tech stacks and software career paths.
Many software bootcamps offer separate data science and web development tracks because the overlap between these skill sets is limited. This does not mean it would be impossible for a web developer to change their career focus and become a network engineer. They would need to self-teach or get certificates to supplement their bootcamp education and move between a software engineering focus.
Career development looks different between software engineers and web developers. Software engineers can see more vertical career growth. They may start as a Software Engineer I, progress to a Software Engineer II, then a Senior Software Engineer and a Staff Software Engineer. Each of these steps provides a deeper understanding of the technology a software engineer works in and a better grasp of how to manage the moving pieces of their apps or services.
Web development career growth may look more horizontal. There's an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the technology you work with, but growth can also come by expanding the number of frameworks and systems you understand. Understanding the base function of a specific service or web app can be extended by being able to build and fix these functions across multiple stacks and frameworks.
If you want to master a process or product and continuously learn new building tools, then web development can be advantageous. On the other hand, if you want to constantly expand your understanding of how the software works and enhance problem-solving, software engineering roles may be the best fit for you.
What Skills Do I need for Each Position?
Software engineers and web developers have a lot of overlap in skills. Both probably know scripting languages like JavaScript, Python, or Ruby. JavaScript is the backbone of the internet and allows developers to make interactive web pages and web apps. It is a valuable tool in any web developer's toolkit.
Along with knowing a scripting language, both positions may require knowledge of a backend-focused language such as Java, Node, or Go.
Web developers can learn how to develop on the backend to get a job. Backend development skills increase their chances of getting hired and the positions they can get. The final skill they share is database query writing using any type of SQL or NoSQL language. Again, this is not a requirement for employment for web developers but will broaden the roles and projects they can take on.
Along with the previously mentioned skills, software engineers may have skills in low-level programming with languages like C++ and shell scripting. These skills focus more on supporting building tools for developing apps rather than building the apps themselves.
A key difference in the skills required for each position is that web developers build apps and products using software engineering tools. In contrast, software engineers can build with software engineering tools or build the tools themselves.
Another set of skills that a software engineer may have is cloud computing and DevOps.
In this case, you might be setting up continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines (CircleCI or Github Actions), building containers (Docker), and configuring cloud storage (AWS or Azure) to go along with general deployments and hosting.
While some bootcamps will touch on these topics, they are not required skills to be a web developer.
Software engineers usually have a broad range of programming skills. This allows them to work on all facets of an application - from development and deployment to security and testing. Web developers usually have the skills to work across a tech stack but may not be able to build and maintain systems to deploy, support, and protect the apps they develop.
Can Both Positions Get Freelance Work?
Two main selling points of a job in tech are flexible hours and the opportunity to be an entrepreneur. Being able to code allows both web developers and software engineers to set their hours and take on freelance clients ranging from local businesses to multinational corporations.
While both skill sets make freelance work possible, the day-to-day skills of a web developer can make it easier to find clients. Most small businesses or startups looking for freelance developers aren't necessarily looking for someone to create a proprietary payment system or a new cloud storage solution.
Generally, they are looking to build marketing websites and sales funnels, e-commerce sites, or blogs. Both web developers and software engineers can complete these tasks, but web developers work with these web technologies daily, so they are usually more familiar with the functions. This is not to say that a software engineer can't do these freelance jobs.
Before beginning a contract, they can but have to learn skills using a Ruby blogging framework such as Jekyll or a web development framework like NextJS. Learning and mastering these frameworks takes time, and the effort reduces overall hourly compensation.
Web developers are well-positioned to take on general freelance opportunities but see a lower billable rate than software engineers. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, software engineers charge an average hourly rate of $52.41, while web developers' hourly rate is $37.56. The higher hourly rate for software engineers may be due to the more technically challenging freelance assignments.
While it can be more lucrative to freelance as a software engineer, it is more practical to freelance as a web developer. The sheer number of potential jobs and clients makes web development a great position if you want to work for yourself.
Become a Web Developer Today
Becoming a Web Developer can unlock higher salaries, endless new problems to solve, and a better work-life balance. Thinkful is driven to offer excellent outcomes for web development students through our 5-month web development bootcamp.
This longer bootcamp dives deep into topics that give you the fundamentals needed to become a web developer and possibly a software engineer. If you have questions, our admission staff are happy to help!