San Francisco is the place to be for tech companies. Naturally, this makes working there the goal for many prospective Software Engineers. All of the tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and more are difficult to get into as they receive many applications. Learning what skills they look for will help put you ahead of the pack.

Data

Before we dive into the skills, here are the top three companies, along with other tech giants ranked by the number of postings on Indeed:

Companies with the most software engineering postings on Indeed in San Francisco.

This is surprising, especially because companies like Google and Facebook are usually associated heavily with The Bay Area. Amazon on top is also is a bit of a shock, considering they have the most software jobs in 6 states other than California. This is partially due to them having multiple listings for the same role on different teams.

Next, skills. Here they are, with different colored bars on the chart representing different categories.

Bar chart showcasing the top skills employers look for in software engineers in San Francisco (sample: 1000)

It’s a pretty even distribution when looking at grouping, with personal skills being the most important for the few on there. Programming Languages show up most frequently, which makes a lot of sense. Business skills seem to be the least important.

Here are the top 3 skills in each category:

CS Concepts: Web (34.9%), Cloud (30.3%), REST (13.7%)

Personal: Written (31.6%), Customer (31.1%), Verbal (22%)

Programming Languages: Python (30.3%), JAVA (26.5%), JavaScript (22.5%)

Software: Amazon Web Services (26%), MS Access (14.5%), Linux (13.7%)

Business: Agile (20.6%), Financial (13.4%), Project Management (10.2%)

Finally, here is the raw data for all of the skills:

Skill Mentioned Percent Category WEB 130 34.9% Software Concepts WRITTEN 118 31.6% Personal CUSTOMER 116 31.1% Personal PYTHON 113 30.3% Programming Languages CLOUD 113 30.3% Software Concepts JAVA 99 26.5% Programming Languages AWS 97 26% Software JAVASCRIPT 84 22.5% Programming Languages VERBAL 82 22% Personal AGILE 77 20.6% Business SQL 64 17.2% Programming Languages REACTJS 59 15.8% Programming Languages REPORTS 56 15% Business ACCESS 54 14.5% Software REST 51 13.7% Software Concepts LINUX 51 13.7% Software FINANCIAL 50 13.4% Business ALGORITHMS 48 12.9% Software Concepts MACHINE LEARNING 46 12.3% Software Concepts DATABASE 44 11.8% Software Concepts FULL-STACK 39 10.5% Software Concepts PROJECT MANAGEMENT 38 10.2% Business GIT 35 9.4% Software NODEJS 35 9.4% Programming Languages GO 35 9.4% Programming Languages JENKINS 34 9.1% Software C++ 34 9.1% Programming Languages C 31 8.3% Programming Languages SAAS 31 8.3% Business FRONT-END 28 7.5% Software Concepts RUBY 28 7.5% Programming Languages JIRA 26 7% Software HTML 26 7% Programming Languages CSS 25 6.7% Programming Languages SCALA 25 6.7% Programming Languages MS OFFICE 25 6.7% Software ANGULARJS 23 6.2% Programming Languages UNIX 23 6.2% Software BIG DATA 23 6.2% Software Concepts EXCEL 23 6.2% Software SDLC 22 5.9% Software Concepts C# 22 5.9% Programming Languages PRESENTATIONS 22 5.9% Business BACK-END 21 5.6% Software Concepts MYSQL 21 5.6% Programming Languages POSTGRESQL 20 5.4% Programming Languages APACHE 20 5.4% Software SCRUM 20 5.4% Business SPARK 20 5.4% Programming Languages GITHUB 19 5.1% Software NOSQL 19 5.1% Programming Languages AZURE 19 5.1% Software PERL 18 4.8% Programming Languages BASH 17 4.6% Programming Languages S3 16 4.3% Software SALESFORCE 16 4.3% Software HADOOP 16 4.3% Programming Languages WORD 16 4.3% Software SHELL 15 4% Programming Languages TYPESCRIPT 15 4% Programming Languages ORACLE 15 4% Software MICROSOFT OFFICE 15 4% Software LAMBDA 14 3.8% Software ANSIBLE 14 3.8% Software REDUX 13 3.5% Programming Languages JSON 12 3.2% Programming Languages ETL 11 2.9% Software Concepts REDSHIFT 10 2.7% Software

Conclusion

Programming languages are the main focus for prospective software engineers, and rightfully so. At the top, Python is a great language to have in your tool belt. Java is a classic language that is also up there, beating out its often compared C#, which is much lower. Javascript (and libraries) is the top front-end language to know, while SQL remains the best back-end language to know.

In terms of cs concepts, web developers are in the highest demand. This is doubly true as front-end also appears on the chart, while back-end does not. As technology shifts to being cloud-based , it is becoming increasingly important to study.

Even though programmers usually don’t need strong personal skills, they are important to employers. Especially being able to communicate, both verbally and written, with customers and non-technical team members.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the top software to learn if you want a software job in San Francisco. Having knowledge of Unix-like operating systems like Linux is also useful.

Business skills aren’t too important at the engineer level, although they will be as you move up the corporate ladder. The basics to know are project management skills like Agile and Scrum.

Further Reading

This is my second article in the series of analyzing skills in job postings. If you enjoy this please check out What Skills Do Companies Look For in Data Analysts in Toronto as well.

Leave a comment below if you’d like me to analyze jobs in another city and/or field.

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