Are mobile programmers having an easy time in 2017?

2016 was undoubtedly a year of anxiety and confusion for mobile programmers. The arrival of the capital winter, the profit-making red ocean of the mobile Internet market, the successive closure of many App startups, the release of WeChat mini-programs... Each event spread on the Internet, seemingly hinting at the decline of the mobile market, thus entangled the hearts of mobile programmers.

"I have been working for five years. I have worked very hard, worked overtime, and studied in my spare time. I have always been a backbone employee of the company. But I suddenly realized that all my accumulation over the years is on Android. If the world changes one day and mobile applications no longer exist in the form of apps, I am afraid that I will not be able to afford to lose."

A while ago, an Android engineer who left his job to look for new opportunities said to a career consultant on our platform.

To a certain extent, his current situation can represent the mentality of some Android engineers in the market. After experiencing the ups and downs of the demand boom in 2015 and the "mobile winter" in 2016, what changes have taken place in the mobile recruitment market in 2017? Is the mobile terminal really going to fail?

With this question in mind, 100offer recently reviewed the recruitment data of mobile programmers on the platform from 2015 to 2017, and interviewed several mobile programmers. The figure below shows the most realistic recruitment status of the mobile market in 2017.

First, let’s take a look at the overall supply and demand changes in the mobile market in 2017.

In 2017, the supply and demand of the mobile market declined

As we all know, 2014 to 2015 was the explosive period of the mobile Internet market, but after the boom, it suddenly cooled down: in 2016, the number of mobile positions in the market began to shrink significantly, but the number of mobile programmers increased day by day, gradually reaching saturation.

This situation continued until 2017, when the number of job seekers for mobile programmers and the recruitment needs of enterprises began to decline overall. Among them, the changes in iOS were more obvious, both in terms of corporate demand and the number of job seekers.

We can analyze the reasons for this phenomenon from two aspects:

1. The mobile market had a huge demand in 2015, and many training courses produced a large number of mobile programmers within a few months, leading to a highly saturated mobile market in 2016: "Training institutions are the fastest way to output talent. Undergraduates need to study for four years to graduate from university, but training institutions can output a mobile programmer to the market in just a few months." Ma Zai, who is currently the technical director of a startup company in Shanghai, told 100offer.

2015 was also a period of hot entrepreneurship. The capital market was optimistic about mobile Internet, which led most entrepreneurs to equate entrepreneurship with mobile app development. There were many startups in the market that aimed to make an app, and the demand for mobile programmers from companies was booming. Therefore, even junior and intermediate mobile programmers with less experience or those from training classes could find a job relatively easily at that time.

2. In the capital winter of 2016, many startups went bankrupt one after another, and corporate demand shrank significantly. Mobile programmers who were very popular in the market a year ago found it less easy to find jobs.

"I have a friend who works on Android. He has worked for 3 companies in 2 years. The reason for his resignation was that the company went bankrupt. One of the companies had more than 400 employees." When talking about the changes in the mobile market in recent years, the programmer lamented that the business changes too fast. Companies that fail to keep up with business changes will soon be eliminated by the market, just like programmers who fail to keep up with changes in technology and the market.

In fact, the so-called mobile winter only affects those who have not laid a solid foundation.

In 2017, the overall salary and average number of interview invitations for mobile applications increased.

As mentioned earlier, the enterprise demand and market supply in the mobile market declined simultaneously in 2017. At the same time, the data from our platform also shows that the average number of mobile interview invitations and the average salary for interview invitations are both increasing.

Why is this? We divided mobile programmers into three-year working years and compared the composition of mobile programmers in 2016 and 2017. We found that:

The number of mobile programmers who decreased in 2017 was mainly junior and intermediate level.

First of all, there is no doubt that mobile terminal employees who have worked for more than 3 years have higher salary levels and demand than those who have worked for less than 3 years.

If we define mobile programmers who have been working for less than three years as junior and intermediate mobile programmers, then we can easily draw the conclusion from the following figure: the number of mobile programmers who decreased in 2017 was mainly junior and intermediate.

In other words, the proportion of advanced and advanced mobile devices is increasing in 2017.

This also explains why the demand for mobile applications from companies and the number of job seekers decreased in 2017, while the average number of interview invitations and average salary increased. This is because junior and mid-level programmers accounted for a higher proportion of the recruitment market before 2016, and their presence lowered the overall salary level and demand for mobile applications.

"In 2015, mobile terminals were very popular. Many people may not have been interested in writing code at all, but they entered this industry because the salaries of programmers were relatively high. This group of people would not spend extra time on continuous learning outside of work, so their salary increases were very low, or their salaries remained the same." Ma Zai said that there are indeed some such programmers around him.

So in 2017, when mobile programmers with more than three years of work experience became the market leaders, the average salary and market demand for mobile terminals naturally rose. This means that after the wave of the mobile winter faded, the mobile terminals that were opportunistic, had weak foundations, and were not suitable for the industry began to be gradually eliminated by the market, leaving those with solid foundations and rich experience standing on the beach. As Ma Zai said: "The market elimination rate has never had anything to do with senior programmers, but only with newcomers."

Among the group of mobile programmers who remain after market screening, we found that the salary gap between mobile programmers who have worked for more than 3 years and those who have worked for less than 3 years is gradually narrowing.

This to some extent shows that after filtering out those junior and mid-level mobile developers who lack capabilities, the remaining people in the market are the best in the industry, and therefore their salary gap is the smallest.

In 2017, the supply and demand in the mobile market finally began to return to balance, and the salary levels of mobile talents are gradually recovering.

So, what will be the future development trend of mobile terminals?

The prospects for mobile terminals remain, but talents need to develop towards compound types

Among the several mobile programmers interviewed by 100offer, except for Rong Wu, a programmer working on Android framework, who expressed concern about the future development prospects of Android and wanted to change careers after the new year, the other programmers were optimistic about the future of mobile.

Regarding the future development trend of mobile terminals, we can judge from two aspects: 1. Changes in the Internet industry environment; 2. Changes in companies' recruitment needs for mobile programmers.

1. Industry environment: combined with more future scenarios

In terms of the Internet industry environment, the rise of fields or concepts such as AI, Internet of Things, and 5G this year will provide more scenarios for mobile terminals to be combined with in the future, such as the on-board systems of driverless cars, the AI ​​computing capabilities of mid-to-high-end mobile phones, and the Internet of Things' smart home interconnection of all things.

"I think Android and iOS will have a lot of room for development in the future. After all, their backgrounds are strong enough - Google and Apple, each generation of system upgrades has a lot of new things." Ma Zai said, "And this year, major companies at home and abroad are developing AI. I believe Android can combine AI to develop a better system and bring a better experience to users."

For example, Google has been focusing on the automotive field in the past two years. Since 2016, we can see that Car-related codes are constantly updated in the code branches of Android Nougat and Oreo. At Google I/O 2017 and CES 2017, car companies such as Andy, Volvo, and FCA also demonstrated their new concept products of in-vehicle infotainment systems based on Android.

Another iOS programmer, Guo Guangda, who joined a Beijing startup company through us last year, also said that he believed that Android and iOS systems could not be replaced until a new operating system came out.

2. Enterprise recruitment needs: more preference for compound talents

If we say that at the beginning of the rise of mobile terminals, companies only needed a mobile programmer who could move code and use open source frameworks to solve most problems, then as the mobile application market gradually became saturated, users' requirements for product experience became higher and higher, and companies' requirements for mobile programmers became more and more demanding.

So, what kind of mobile programmers do Internet companies prefer in 2017? While consulting several mobile programmers interviewed this time, 100offer also checked the interview invitations JDs sent by companies on the platform to senior/experienced mobile programmers, and summarized the following points:

1.3+ years of work experience, in-depth understanding of the underlying principles of mobile terminals

An experienced mobile developer should not only be able to use frameworks, but also be able to write frameworks. Before writing, he or she should have a deep understanding of the underlying principles.

2. Independently led or developed core projects of more than one product

Core development experience in independent projects is a requirement that frequently appears in the job descriptions we send to senior Android/iOS engineers in many companies.

For startups where everyone's work results are magnified, "one position, one pit" is particularly valued. Therefore, they believe that only those who have experience in independent project development can be independent in future work.

3. Rich project experience or management ability

This is an essential quality required for many mobile positions that are more technically management-oriented, such as mobile development team leaders. It is also an essential skill for mobile programmers who want to pursue a technical management career.

4. Work closely with product managers and designers

The ability to continuously optimize product performance and improve user experience requires mobile programmers to work harder on communication skills, visual aesthetics, and understanding of user needs. It has long been said that the first half of the Internet is about traffic, and the second half is about user experience. Therefore, the optimization of product structure and performance is the focus of many companies at this stage.

5. Front-end and back-end development experience is a plus

Excellent programmers are never restricted to any single language. Especially today when product updates and iterations are faster, such compound talents who are proficient in one language are often more favored by companies.

From the above, we can see that in addition to the single function development, the demand of enterprises for mobile terminals also derives many additional factors such as project management, product design communication, front-end and back-end development, etc. In this case, the more comprehensive and complex the mobile terminal is, the more popular it is among enterprises.

The future direction of mobile engineers

As mentioned earlier, although most of the interviewees are optimistic about the future development trend of mobile terminals, there is still a programmer named Rong Wu who works on the underlying system of Android who wants to change his career after the New Year.

"The programmers around me who work on frameworks don't want to work on Android anymore." Rong Wu said that with the continuous updating and improvement of the Android system, his daily framework work has become mainly about fixing bugs, and the top Android programmers around him, even if they have reached the level of Android architects, will feel confused and don't know where to go next in their careers.

Indeed, as Google has been working hard to eliminate fragmentation and various support packages, many programmers have passively become code porters, doing the work of junior coders and unable to get promoted. But this does not mean that the path for mobile programmers will become narrower and narrower in the future. Because there are many paths to choose from, both horizontally and vertically.

Generally speaking, there are two paths for mobile programmers to advance: technical specialization and technology-to-product conversion.

• Promotion track from technology to product: Android junior developer - intermediate - senior - software architect - system architect - product manager - product director;
• Promotion track via technical expertise: Android junior development programmer—intermediate—senior—software architect—system architect—project manager—technical officer.

Generally speaking, it takes a long time to complete this route in large companies, but in many start-up companies, the shortest distance from junior Android developer to chief technology officer may be a few years.

The interviewee this time, Ma Zai, used three years to rise from an ordinary Android developer to the CTO of a startup company.

"What should mobile programmers do now to advance step by step in the future market competition and avoid being eliminated?" For those mobile programmers who are confused about the future and can't find their direction, he has two suggestions.

1. Sinking

The direction of sinking can be framework. To make framework is to go to the bottom layer, for example, to work on the bottom layer hardware system for some mobile phone companies such as Xiaomi and Meizu. However, the code of framework is complicated and often has billions of lines. If you can achieve the technical commanding heights in a certain field, you will be popular in the future due to certain market scarcity.

2. Extension

The second way is expansion. Programmers can expand their technical breadth while mastering the mobile terminal. "Nowadays, T-shaped compound talents are popular, that is, 80% of the time is spent on technical depth, 20% of the time is spent on technical hobbies, and they use their spare time to continuously expand their own technology stack. In this way, whether you work in a small company with multiple positions or work as a core developer in a large company, you can understand the needs of your partners more quickly, making the communication cost of both parties lower." Ma Zai said that after working for three years, he has mastered the mobile terminal and learned iOS and some background languages ​​by self-study.

3. Transformation

100offer believes that if the previous two paths are blocked, there is still one way out - transformation.

The most common transformations for mobile programmers are product managers and Java. It is not difficult for Android engineers to transform into Java in terms of basic knowledge, after all, the languages ​​are interoperable and the features are similar. However, it is recommended that those who do not want to modify the UI every day and those who have just entered the industry should transform into Android engineers. For some Android engineers with a long working experience, if they originally transformed from JavaEE, it is not recommended to transform into Java.

There are many cases of programmers becoming product managers. Product managers are also technical positions, but they only write requirement documents for people to see. But before becoming a product manager, you must ask yourself why you want to become a product manager, because products are no longer based on technical skills, but more on communication, management and expression skills. You need to see if your personality is really suitable. If the code written by an Android programmer can only be understood by computers but not by programmers responsible for maintenance, then don't become a product manager.

In fact, in addition to Java engineers and product managers, mobile programmers have many other transformation directions. At the end of the interview, Rong Wu, who had just finished several rounds of interviews and was still confused about the future, said that he planned to stop interviewing and think about his next transformation direction before the New Year. He is currently more interested in image algorithms, but he needs to think carefully during the New Year to make a real decision. He said: "After all, I am 31 years old this year. The next time I change jobs, it should be the last chance to choose in my career."

100offer believes that throughout 2017, the mobile market is no longer as turbulent as it was in 2016. Although on the surface, the demand of enterprises and the number of job seekers are declining, this is not a bad thing. Looking beyond the phenomenon to the essence, we found that behind the reduction in demand and the number of people is the adjustment of personnel structure and the improvement of salary and benefits - in 2017, junior and mid-level mobile terminals that are not suitable for this industry were eliminated, and excellent mobile terminals were left behind. Talents began to develop towards compound types. Mobile terminals with stronger comprehensive capabilities will be more and more popular with enterprises in the future. It turns out that the so-called "cold winter" is really only for those with poor foundations.

(Rongwu, Guo Guangda and Ma Zai are pseudonyms in this article)