Mobile app developers

According to an industry report, by 2015, over 1.3 billion people will use smart phones for everything, including work. Today companies are rushing to build applications for these mobile devices as many businesses will use mobile applications. The report predicted that smart phone applications market could grow to $50 billion dollars in the next two years. As the mobile jobs market is booming, there is a critical shortage of mobile app developers all over the world because many universities have not caught up with this trend.

A software executive said: “Few years ago, most company businesses were based on websites so web development was hot. Few people think mobile phone could replace PC but the iPhone change everything. Today if you do not have a mobile apps, you will not survive because 70% of customers are now using smart phone for their on line transactions. For example, instead of making hotel reservation via PC, now most people use their smart phone when travel. If you are in tourist and travel business such as restaurants and hotels and do not have mobile app, you will not get customers. Few years ago, Hotels.com was just a small travel booking business as compared with larger and well established on line companies like Expedia, Travelocity and Priceline but four years ago it created smart phone apps to reserve hotels and had more than 10 million people downloaded and used Hotels.com apps, since then its business have increased significantly. Today no travel reservation company can ignore mobile apps because smartphones and tablets are what people carry around, not laptops or PC.”

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Today there are more opportunities and different applications for smart phone than few years ago. Every company is looking for more talented people in mobile apps area, especially “technical leaders” who can guide innovation for Apple’s IOS, Window 8, and Android. As more companies are moving into web-based business as more of their customers are using smart phones the need for mobile developers has reached a critical point. A market analyst explained: “Finding people with the right skills is difficult. Most companies could not find the right workers. The problem is not a lack of applicants, but rather a lack of experience and qualifications. Mobile technologies are so new that universities have not yet caught up with courses, degrees, and certifications.” A senior executive said: “We are very concerned about this as our business is growing fast. We look for anyone with degrees in computer science, electronics, or engineering and send them to training schools to learn about mobile development. We also have to hire many developers from oversea to bring them here since many of them have skills in development, content creations, and management. Today our recruiters are travel all over the world to find these talents.

The key to build a good career is to plan it ahead of time. If you are students in software field, you should learn something about mobile development as there are many tutorials available that you need to take into consideration:

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University