Build the software people carry in their pocket, ship it to an app store, then keep fixing it on devices you have never held.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $135,980 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $82,460 at the lower end to about $214,670 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$150 to $60,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Very high demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$135,980
Bottom tenth
$82,460
Top tenth
$214,670
The national median is $135,980 a year, the bottom tenth earn $82,460 or less and the top tenth $214,670 or more, in the 2025 survey. The federal wage survey has no separate title for mobile work, so these are the figures for Software Developers as a whole.
$82,460 to $105,210
The bottom tenth and bottom quarter of software developers, 2025
A first developer job usually pays in this part of the range, though the survey publishes no separate starting figure.
$105,210 to $171,980
Half of all workers in the 2025 survey earn between these two figures
Large technology companies often add company stock that vests over several years, which is real money but not guaranteed money. Contract and freelance developers bill by the day instead, and carry their own benefits.
Roughly, all in
$150 to $60,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Learning to build apps costs almost nothing, because the tools cost nothing and a no-cost Apple developer account runs your own app on your own iPhone, so the low end is only the publishing fees: $99 a year for the Apple Developer Program and a one time $25 for a Google Play developer account. The high end is a four year computer science degree at a public university at in-state rates of $11,000 to $18,000 a year. A coding bootcamp sits in the middle at $10,000 to $20,000 for three to six months, and quality varies wildly. The self-taught door is real but harder to walk through, because without a degree or a referral you are competing on a portfolio that has to be good enough to skip the first filter.
Learning to build apps costs almost nothing. A no-cost Apple developer account lets you write an app and run it on your own iPhone, and Android tools cost nothing. You only start paying when you want to publish. If you do take the degree route, fill in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Salary plus stock
Standard at technology companies. The stock portion can be large and takes years to vest.
Remote work
Fully remote jobs are genuinely common in software work.
Contract rates
Experienced mobile contractors bill by the day, with no benefits attached.
Your own apps
Anyone can publish. The stores take a share of what you earn, commonly 15 to 30 percent depending on the program and your revenue.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Nobody checks your diploma once you have shipped something. Getting the first job is the hard part, and a portfolio is what does it.
High school
Grades 10 to 12
Any computer course, plus math. Start building now: a no-cost Apple developer account or Android Studio and a laptop is the whole setup.
Pick a platform and learn it properly
6 to 12 months
Swift for iPhone, Kotlin for Android, or a cross-platform tool like React Native or Flutter. Learn one deeply before you spread out.
Degree, bootcamp or self-taught
0 to 4 years
A four year computer science degree opens the most doors and is still the safest route. Bootcamps are faster and riskier. Self-taught works but you have to be relentless about it.
Ship real apps
Alongside everything else
Two or three finished apps in a store, with real users and real reviews, beat any certificate. Contribute to an open source project too.
Internship, then first job
3 to 12 months of applying
Internships are how most large employers hire. Expect technical interviews with live coding problems, and practice those specifically.
Computer science
The Advanced Placement course counts for college credit at many universities.
Math
Not because apps are full of calculus, but because degree admissions and the logic both need it.
Art or design
Mobile work is judged on how it feels. Developers who understand layout and typography get better jobs.
English
You will write documentation, tickets and explanations of your decisions every week.
There is no license, no registration and no protected title. You can publish an app to Google Play with a one-time $25 fee, or to Apple's App Store with a $99 yearly membership, and be live in front of millions of people without anyone's permission. The gatekeeping happens elsewhere. App stores review what you submit and reject things that break their rules, and employers gatekeep through technical interviews rather than credentials.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Both platforms
Developers who can ship a good iPhone app and a good Android app are rarer than you would think.
Backend work
Most apps are a thin layer over a server. Knowing how to build the API (application programming interface) behind your app doubles what you can be handed.
Performance and battery work
Making a slow app fast on a cheap phone is a specific, valued skill.
Accessibility
Screen reader support and proper contrast are legally required for many clients and rarely done well.
A published app with real users
The single most persuasive thing on a junior application.
Version control and teamwork
Git is not optional. Neither is being able to read somebody else's code without complaining about it.
UI (user interface) design basics
Even a rough sense of spacing and hierarchy makes your work look professional.
Interview practice
Technical interviews test a narrow skill that has little to do with the job. Practice it anyway, because it is the door.
Publishing your own app is the cheapest business anyone can start: $25 once for Android, $99 a year for Apple, and a laptop. The hard truth is that almost all apps earn nothing, and the ones that earn are usually marketing successes more than engineering ones. Treat it as a portfolio and a lottery ticket, not a plan.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
A short team stand-up, then a few hours of actual coding on a feature or a bug. Review somebody else's code, get yours reviewed. Test on a handful of devices and screen sizes, because what looks right on your phone will be broken on a three year old Android. Afternoons often go to meetings with designers and product people about what to build next. Before a release there is a crunch of testing and store submission, and after a release there is whatever crashed.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The federal survey counted about 1,717,800 software developers in 2025, the group app developers are counted in, and federal projections expect growth much faster than average with about 95,300 openings a year to 2035.
Apple's TestFlight service lets a developer invite up to 10,000 external testers to try a build before it launches. It is one way to find the bugs that only appear on other people's phones.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Software first, then the rest of the field. See every career in tech.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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