Technology · Analyzing & Problem-solving

Software developer: what the job actually is

Writing and fixing the instructions behind an app or a system, mostly by reading other people's code and working out why it is wrong.

Published October 1, 2026Last reviewed October 1, 2026How we research and correct this

The work

What this job actually is

Turning something a person wants into instructions a machine can follow, and then spending most of your time on the gap between what you meant and what the machine did.
You will read far more code than you write, and most of it will be code you did not write and cannot ask the author about.
A large part of the job is working out what is actually being asked for. The stated request is often not the real problem, and noticing that is most of the value you add.
It is collaborative in a way films never show: code review, pairing, standups, arguing about trade-offs, explaining a decision to somebody non-technical.
The ground moves. Tools and frameworks you are expert in become irrelevant, and the people who last are the ones who are comfortable being a beginner again every few years.

A Tuesday

What a normal day looks like

Not a good day or a bad one. The ordinary version, which is what you would actually be living.

9:00 — Coffee, read messages, see what broke overnight. Something always broke overnight somewhere.
9:20 — Standup. Ten minutes, standing or on a call, everybody says what they are on and what is in their way.
9:35 — Review somebody else's work. Read their changes properly, ask the awkward question, approve it or explain what is wrong without being unpleasant about it.
10:15 — The actual work. Two hours on one problem, mostly reading, with maybe twenty lines changed at the end of it.
12:15 — Lunch. Argue amiably about something nobody outside the room would care about.
13:00 — A meeting that could have been a message, and one that genuinely could not — somebody from the business side explains what they need and you realise their request is impossible as stated.
14:00 — The afternoon block. You hit something that makes no sense, you read the error forty times, you discover it is your own typo from this morning.
16:00 — It works. Write the tests, write the explanation of why, open it for review.
16:45 — Help somebody else with theirs for twenty minutes. This is most of how anybody learns anything in this job.
17:00 — Done, and nothing physical exists to show for it. Some people find that quietly hard.

Honestly

Who loves this, and who should not do it

The second list is the useful one. Nearly every careers page leaves it out, which is why nearly every careers page reads like an advert.

How you actually get there in Ontario

There is no licence, which changes everything
Nobody can stop you writing software, and no regulator decides who is allowed to call themselves a developer. That means the route is genuinely open — and it means nothing is handed to you by finishing a programme.
University, college, or neither
A computer science or software engineering degree opens the most doors and teaches the theory properly. A college programme is faster, more practical and cheaper. Self-taught works and plenty of working developers took that route, but it asks more of you and gives you no network, which is the harder half.
Build things that exist
Three finished small projects somebody can click on will do more for you than a stack of certificates. Finished is the operative word — half-built projects are the most common thing on a junior portfolio and they all look the same.
Co-op is the real advantage
Ontario colleges and universities with co-op streams get you paid work experience before you graduate, and most junior hiring runs through people who have already seen you work. If you take one thing from this page, take that.

Where this comes from: Job Bank — Software engineers and designers (NOC 21231) · ontariocolleges.ca — program search · Ontario Universities' INFO — program search

The money

What it pays in Ontario

Job Bank's own figures, quoted rather than summarised, with the period they describe — so you can tell how old they are and go and check them.

$36.06: Low (hourly)
$56.73: Median (hourly)
$88.00: High (hourly)

Ontario, NOC 21231. Reference period 2023-2024, last updated by Job Bank on 19 November 2025. Wages vary a lot by region inside Ontario and by how long you have been doing it — the low figure is roughly where you start, not what the job is worth.

Source: Job Bank — Software developer wages in Ontario

Before you leave school

Things you can do now

Take the highest maths you can cope with. Not because the job is maths, but because the degree routes require it and dropping it at 16 closes doors at 18.
Computer science courses if your school has them. If not, nothing is stopping you — this is the one career on this list you can start properly for free, tonight.
Build one thing somebody who is not related to you actually uses. A tool for your team, your class, your parents' business. One real user teaches more than ten tutorials.
Put it somewhere public. A repository with your name on it, with commits over months, is the single most useful object a 17-year-old can own in this field.

Test it

Do this before you decide anything

Reading about a job tells you almost nothing. This is designed to be done alone, this week, for free.

Find out whether being stuck is interesting or awful

About 120 minutes

Pick a tiny thing you actually want to exist — a countdown to something, a tracker for a habit, a page that tells you one useful thing. Small enough to finish tonight.
Build it badly. Use any free tutorial, copy from anywhere, do not worry about whether it is good. The goal is a working thing, not good code.
When it breaks — and it will break within ten minutes — time yourself. How long until you want to stop? Write the number down.
Get it finished and show one person. Notice what you felt when it worked: relief, or the urge to immediately make it better.

What it tells you. The whole job is the twenty minutes where it is broken and you do not know why. If that stretch felt like a puzzle, this career will suit you for decades. If it felt like being told off by a machine, that feeling does not go away with experience — it just gets faster.

Better than any article

Questions for somebody who does this job

Most people say yes to a teenager who asks good questions. These are the ones that get real answers rather than encouragement.

“What did you actually do yesterday, hour by hour?”
“How much of your week is writing new code versus reading old code?”
“What is the part of the job nobody warned you about?”
“How did you get your first job, specifically?”
“What do you look for in somebody with no experience?”
“What have you had to relearn from scratch since you started?”
“Would you do a degree again if you were 18 now?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Yes, and with lower startup costs than almost anything else — a laptop and an internet connection. Contract development, small products, and building software for local businesses are all realistic. The thing that stops developers going independent is never the code; it is finding customers and charging properly.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

Not sure this is the right list to be reading

Start from yourself, not from the job.

Future Finder is free, takes about ten minutes, needs no account and stores nothing. It will tell you which kinds of work you lean toward, and which of these pages are worth your time.

Try Future Finder — free All jobs

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