25 Popular Programming Languages with Career Opportunities
The popularity of programming is on the rise every year. I compiled a comprehensive list of popular programming languages along with career descriptions, so as not to exclude those which are popular in smaller industries or more specialized occupations.
Python
Python is among the most popular programming languages and is always at or near the top of the Tiobe index. As a high-level, general purpose language touted for readability, it’s one of the best languages for beginners to learn in 2023.
Python also has a large package ecosystem and is very modular in nature.
Data science is one of the fastest-growing job categories which utilizes Python extensively because of its ease of reading and writing mathematical formulas.
Python Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Data Scientist | Analyze and extract insights from large datasets. |
| Web Developer | Build back-end systems for web applications. |
| Software Engineer | Design and develop software applications and systems. |
| Machine Learning Engineer | Build and deploy machine learning models. |
| DevOps Engineer | Automate and manage software development and deployment pipelines. |
| Scientific Computing | Write scientific computing and numerical analysis scripts. |
| Game Developer | Create games and interactive applications. |
C++
Designed by Bjarne Stroustrup, C++ grew out of his research at the computer science research center at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
It works on many operating systems and just requires a compiler to run. It’s considered a low-level programming language and gives programmers greater access to hardware and memory management than higher-level languages.
C++ Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Game Developer | Use C++ to create games for PC, consoles, and mobile devices. |
| Systems Programmer | Use C++ to write low-level code for operating systems and device drivers. |
| High-Performance Computing Developer | Use C++ to develop and optimize code for high-performance computing systems. |
| Embedded Systems Engineer | Use C++ to develop software for embedded systems, such as microcontrollers and IoT devices. |
| Backend Developer | Use C++ to manage and query data for web and mobile applications. |
| Compiler Developer | Use C++ to develop and optimize compilers and programming languages. |
| AI and Robotics Engineer | Use C++ to develop AI and robotics applications. |
SQL
SQL is a long-time standard and popular programming language for relational databases.
Learning how to properly structure databases and query them is a must for building quality software and gathering and storing large sets of data.
SQL Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Database Administrator | Use SQL to manage and maintain databases for businesses and organizations |
| Data Analyst | Use SQL to extract and analyze data from databases |
| Business Intelligence Developer | Use SQL to design and build business intelligence systems |
| Data Engineer | Use SQL to design and build data pipelines and ETL processes |
| Database Developer | Use SQL to design and build database structures and schema |
| Backend Developer | Use SQL to manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Data Scientist | Use SQL to query and analyze data for machine learning and data modeling |
PHP
PHP is among the most popular server side programming languages used primarily for interfacing with a relational database and doing operations for outputting HTML to the browser.
It gained popularity in the early days of web development and was the language of choice at the inception of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg.
Although Facebook has evolved its code base as it scaled over the years, the most popular content management system in the world, WordPress, still utilizes PHP to generate web pages.
Laravel is also a popular web development application framework built on PHP.
PHP Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| CMS Developer | Develop content management systems, such as WordPress or Drupal |
| E-commerce Developer | Develop e-commerce websites and systems |
| Web Application Developer | Develop custom web applications for businesses and organizations |
| Social Media Developer | Develop social media platforms and features |
| Database Developer | Integrate with and query databases for web applications |
Java
Java is an object-oriented programming language which has its proprietary runtime virtual machine environment, making it portable to any operating system.
Java has consistently been one of the most popular programming languages in existence, likely due to its lack of dependencies and portability.
Criticisms of Java include the need for its own runtime environment, which must exist on the operating system of the end user to work. It also has a history of security vulnerabilities and tends to run slower than C or C++.
Java Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Android Developer | Develop Android mobile applications |
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Software Engineer | Design and develop software applications and systems |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Enterprise Developer | Build large-scale enterprise applications |
| Game Developer | Develop games for PC, consoles, and mobile devices |
Javascript
Not to be confused with Java, Javascript is the language of web browsers, and allows you to apply functionality to interfaces, as well as make API calls to perform CRUD operations in a database through the use of APIs.
TypeScript is a Superset of Javascript created by Microsoft, whose aim is to bring data type checking and other features some thought the Javascript was lacking. It’s used during the development process as a tool and compiled into vanilla Javascript.
NodeJS is the most popular back-end JavaScript runtime environment, but other solutions are emerging including Deno and Bun. NodeJS paved the way for server-side Javascript but Deno and Bun aim to improve on things like security and performance.
JavaScript Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Frontend Developer | Build user interfaces and front-end systems for web applications |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| UI/UX Designer | Create interactive and dynamic user interfaces |
| Mobile Application Developer | Build mobile applications for iOS and Android |
| Web Designer | Create animations and interactive web design elements |
| Game Developer | Create games and interactive web experiences |
Swift
Swift language is used in iOS mobile applications development. Created by Apple,it’s used to create applications in the Apple ecosystem, including for Apple Watches, iPads, and AppleTV. It’s also closely linked to Object C and open source, although Apple does maintain its code base and provides a suite of tools and even an IDE called Xcode.
Swift Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| iOS Developer | Develop iOS mobile applications |
| MacOS Developer | Develop MacOS desktop applications |
| WatchOS Developer | Develop Apple Watch applications |
| tvOS Developer | Develop Apple TV applications |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| AR/VR Developer | Develop augmented reality and virtual reality applications for iOS |
| Game Developer | Create games for iOS devices |
Kotlin
Kotlin has emerged as one of the favorite tools for Android developers. It has Java as its inspiration but ultimately aimed to address things like more pleasing-to-read declarations and assignment operators.
Google, Amazon, Netflix, Pinterest and other high profile companies have used Kotlin in their backend.
Kotlin Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Android Developer | Ddevelop Android mobile applications |
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Desktop Application Developer | Develop desktop applications for Windows, MacOS, and Linux |
| Game Developer | Create games for PC, consoles, and mobile devices |
| AR/VR Developer | Develop augmented reality and virtual reality applications for Android |
Ruby
Ruby is a beloved backend programming language, which grew in popularity thanks to Ruby on Rails – a web development CRUD framework.
Ruby Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| DevOps Engineer | Automate and manage software development and deployment pipelines |
| CMS Developer | Develop content management systems, such as Ruby on Rails |
| E-commerce Developer | Develop e-commerce websites and systems |
| Scripting Developer | Write scripts for automating repetitive tasks and managing system |
Scala
Scala runs on the Java Runtime Environment, but aimed at addressing some of the perceived issues with the Java language.
Scala Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Data Scientist | Analyze and extract insights from large datasets |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Software Engineer | Design and develop software applications and systems |
| DevOps Engineer | Automate and manage software development and deployment pipelines |
| Big Data Engineer | Develop and manage large-scale data processing systems |
| Machine Learning Engineer | Build and deploy machine learning models |
| High-Frequency Trading Developer | Build software for high-frequency trading algorithms |
Visual Basic
Visual Basic was developed by Microsoft as a language for interacting with a variety of their software products and creating .Net applications from scratch.
Visual Basic Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Windows Application Developer | Develop desktop applications for Windows |
| Frontend Developer | Create user interfaces for desktop and web applications |
| Database Developer | Integrate with and query databases for desktop and web |
| Game Developer | Create games for PC |
| Scripting Developer | Write scripts for automating repetitive tasks and managing |
| Office Developer | Develop macros and custom functionality for Microsoft Office |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
Perl
Perl is famous for its text-processing abilities and has been around since 1987 when invented by Larry Wall.
It’s very terse, but allows for great efficiency and organization due to its chosen syntax and type primitive methods for easy command chaining.
Perl Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| Scripting Developer | Write scripts for automating repetitive tasks and managing system |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Network Administrator | Manage and automate network administration tasks |
| DevOps Engineer | Automate and manage software development and deployment pipelines |
| System Administrator | Manage and automate system administration tasks |
R
R is a very specific language. It is meant to crunch large volumes of statistics and represent the data in a variety of graphical representations, such as charts, graphs and more.
R Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Data Scientist | Analyze and extract insights from |
| Data Analyst | Extract and analyze data from databases |
| Business Intelligence Developer | Design and build business intelligence systems |
| Machine Learning Engineer | Build and deploy machine learning models |
| Research Scientist | Perform statistical analyses and build models in scientific research |
| Data Visualization Specialist | Create data visualizations and dashboards for businesses and |
| Financial Analyst | Analyze and model financial data |
Matlab
Matlab is used by data scientists and engineers for looking into data and creating models to test against. A lot like Java, MATLAB has its own proprietary runtime and even paid products, but you can compile your applications to C++ if you want.
Matlab Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Data Scientist | Analyze and extract insights from large datasets |
| Engineer | Design and simulate engineering systems |
| Computational Finance Developer | Build financial models and simulations |
| Research Scientist | Perform numerical analysis and modeling in scientific research |
| Image Processing Developer | Develop and process images and videos |
| Machine Learning Engineer | Build and deploy machine learning models |
| Signal Processing Engineer | Develop and process signals in audio and video |
C#
C# is the primary programming language running in the .NET environment, and it’s maintained by Microsoft.
It has a wide variety of applications, including native Desktop Windows applications, mobile apps, and runs on many gaming engines.
C# Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Windows Application Developer | Develop desktop applications for Windows |
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Game Developer | Create games for PC, consoles, and mobile devices |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| Unity Developer | Develop games and applications using the Unity game engine |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Database Developer | Integrate with and query databases for desktop and web applications |
Fortran
Fortran has been around since the 1950s and is used for very specific computing purposes where large amounts of data and data points need computing even across parallel machines, such as physics and weather prediction.
Fortran Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Scientific Computing | Wwrite scientific computing and numerical analysis scripts |
| Aerospace Engineer | Simulate and analyze aerospace systems |
| Geoscientist | Perform numerical modeling and analysis in geosciences |
| High-Performance Computing Developer | Develop and optimize code for high-performance |
| Nuclear Engineer | Simulate and analyze nuclear systems |
| Computational Physics | Perform numerical modeling and analysis in physics research |
| Meteorologist | Perform numerical modeling and analysis in atmospheric and weather |
Go
Go was created and is maintained by a team at Google. It was intended to be both easy-to-read syntactically but with powerful features like C++ to create efficient software that may be scaled and run concurrently on a distributed server architecture.
Go Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Cloud Infrastructure Developer | Develop and deploy software on cloud infrastructure platforms |
| Microservices Developer | Develop and deploy microservices for large-scale applications |
| DevOps Engineer | Automate and manage software development and deployment pipelines |
| Network Engineer | Develop and manage network infrastructure and automation |
| System Administrator | Automate and manage system administration tasks |
| Blockchain Developer | Develop blockchain applications and systems |
Rust
Rust is similar to Go in its use as a general purpose programming language, but it has features aimed at types and managing memory very efficiently and safely. It can also handle concurrency well. It’s been around since 2010.
Rust Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Systems Programmer | Write low-level code for operating systems and device drivers |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Game Developer | Create games for PC, consoles, and mobile devices |
| High-Performance Computing Developer | Develop and optimize code for high-performance |
| Embedded Systems Engineer | Develop software for embedded systems, such as microcontrollers |
| DevOps Engineer | Automate and manage software development and deployment pipelines |
| Web Assembly Developer | Develop web applications using WebAssembly |
Lua
Lua is a high-level language aimed at lightweight, cross-platform embedded applications. It even has an API to integrate with C. It was first released in 1993 and today is commonly used for software extension mods, gaming mods, and GUI features.
Lua Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Game Developer | Create games for PC, consoles |
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Network Administrator | Manage and automate network administration tasks |
| Scripting Developer | Write scripts for automating repetitive tasks and managing system |
| Desktop Application Developer | Develop desktop applications for Windows, MacOS, and Linux |
| Audio/Video Developer | Develop and process audio and video for games and other applications |
Haskell
Haskell is a purely functional programming language. It shines for its performance and what is termed lazy evaluation, where an expression isn’t evaluated until it is used by a function. A drawback here can be issues with RAM, but garbage collection is included.
Haskell Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Systems Programmer | Write low-level code for operating systems and device drivers |
| Financial Engineer | Develop and model financial systems |
| Compiler Developer | Develop and optimize compilers and programming languages |
| Blockchain Developer | Develop blockchain applications and systems |
| Data Scientist | Analyze and extract insights from large datasets |
| Cloud Infrastructure Developer | Develop and deploy software on cloud infrastructure |
Groovy
Groovy is a Java compatible language that runs on the Java platform. Groovy expands the capabilities of Java while tending to be more concise in its syntax.
Groovy Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| DevOps Engineer | Automate and manage software development and deployment pipelines |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Scripting Developer | Write scripts for automating repetitive tasks and managing system |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| Java Developer | Use Groovy as a scripting language for Java applications and systems |
| Jenkins Developer | Develop and automate continuous integration and deployment pipelines |
Julia
Julia is a general purpose language, but is sought after for its strengths in statistical analysis and real-time data visualization. It’s very fast due to its JIT compiler, which means the code is converted into binary at runtime on a needed basis.
One interesting feature of Julia is dispatching, where a function can dispatch different methods depending on the input data types.
Julia Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Data Scientist | Analyze and extract insights from large datasets |
| Computational Finance Developer | Build financial models and simulations |
| Scientific Computing | Write scientific computing and numerical analysis scripts |
| Machine Learning Engineer | Build and deploy machine learning models |
| High-Performance Computing Developer | Develop and optimize code for high-performance |
| Robotics Engineer | Program robots and automation systems |
| Data Visualization Specialist | Create data visualizations and dashboards for businesses and |
Dart
Dart is a general purpose language meant as a higher level way of creating software once for many different platforms. It was ultimately adopted by the Flutter team, allowing software developers to create mobile apps for iOS and Android.
Dart Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application Developer | Ddevelop mobile applications for iOS and Android |
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| UI/UX Designer | Create interactive and dynamic user interfaces |
| Game Developer | Create games for PC and mobile devices |
| Desktop Application Developer | Develop desktop applications for Windows, MacOS, and Linux |
Apex
Apex is a proprietary programming language used in the Salesforce ecosystem. An equivalent in the Microsoft world would be Visual Basic. Those familiar with a language like Java would see similarities in its syntax.
Apex Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Salesforce Developer | Develop custom functionality and integrations for the Salesforce |
| Web Developer | Build web applications and back-end systems |
| Full Stack Developer | Front-end and back-end development |
| Cloud Infrastructure Developer | Develop and deploy software on cloud infrastructure |
| Backend Developer | Manage and query data for web and mobile applications |
| DevOps Engineer | Automate and manage software development and deployment pipelines |
| Database Developer | Integrate with and query databases for web applications |
VHDL
VHDL stands for Visual Hardware Description Language. The objective is to visually represent different aspects of the hardware for a given device, in order to run tests and verify data flow.
VHDL Career Opportunities
| Career Opportunity | Description |
|---|---|
| Hardware Engineer | Design and develop digital hardware systems |
| Firmware Engineer | Write low-level code for embedded systems |
| Verification Engineer | Develop and run tests for hardware and software systems |
| ASIC Design Engineer | Design and develop custom Application Specific Integrated Circuits |
| FPGA Design Engineer | Design and develop custom Field Programmable Gate Arrays |
| Embedded Systems Engineer | Develop software for embedded systems, such as microcontrollers |
| Digital Signal Processing Engineer | Develop and process signals in audio, video, and |