MySQL Developer – Income and Opportunity

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Annual Income

The average annual income of a MySQL Developer is between $87,828 and $149,975 according to Glassdoor (source):

A more conservative range would be to reach an annual income between $70,000 and $139,000 within 2-4 years of education as a MySQL professional.

Hourly Rate

If you decide to go the route as a freelance MySQL Developer, you can expect to make between $60 and $99 per hour on Upwork (source). Assuming an annual workload of 2000 hours, you can expect to make between $120,000 and $198,000 per year.

If you look at the skill descriptions of these freelancers, you’ll see that having some experience with alternative database technologies such as MariaDB and PostgreSQL can be a great help to position yourself as an expert on Upwork.

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Industry Demand

But is there enough demand? Let’s have a look at Google trends to find out how interest evolves over time (source):

One of the reasons for the declines may be the rise of NoSQL database technologies such as DynamoDB and MongoDB and fully managed solutions such as ElasticSearch.

Work Description

So, you may wonder: MySQL Developer – what’s the definition?

MySQL Developer Definition: A MySQL Developer is responsible for database administration such as performance optimization, troubleshooting, problem solving, and customer support. (Source)

Learning Path, Skills, and Education Requirements

Do you want to become a MySQL Developer? Here’s a learning path I’d propose in five steps to get started:

Step 1: Introduction to Computer Science (~40 hours)
Step 2: Introduction to Databases (~20 hours)
Step 3: Introduction to MySQL (~10 hours)

You can find many courses on the Finxter Computer Science Academy (flatrate model).

But don’t wait too long to acquire practical experience!

Even if you have little skills, it’s best to get started as a freelance developer and learn as you work on real projects for clients — earning income as you learn and gaining motivation through real-world feedback.

Tip: An excellent start to turbo-charge your freelancing career (earning more in less time) is our Finxter Freelancer Course. The goal of the course is to pay for itself!

Related Income of Professional Developers

The following statistic shows the self-reported income from 9,649 US-based professional developers (source).

The average annual income of professional developers in the US is between $70,000 and $177,500 for various programming languages.

Question: What is your current total compensation (salary, bonuses, and perks, before taxes and deductions)? Please enter a whole number in the box below, without any punctuation. If you are paid hourly, please estimate an equivalent weekly, monthly, or yearly salary. (source)

The following statistic compares the self-reported income from 46,693 professional programmers as conducted by StackOverflow.

The average annual income of professional developers worldwide (US and non-US) is between $33,000 and $95,000 for various programming languages.

Here’s a screenshot of a more detailed overview of each programming language considered in the report:

Here’s what different database professionals earn:

Here’s an overview of different cloud solutions experts:

Here’s what professionals in web frameworks earn:

There are many other interesting frameworks—that pay well!

Look at those tools:

Okay, but what do you need to do to get there? What are the skill requirements and qualifications to make you become a professional developer in the area you desire?

Let’s find out next!

General Qualifications of Professionals

StackOverflow performs an annual survey asking professionals, coders, developers, researchers, and engineers various questions about their background and job satisfaction on their website.

Interestingly, when aggregating the data of the developers’ educational background, a good three quarters have an academic background.

Here’s the question asked by StackOverflow (source):

Which of the following best describes the highest level of formal education that you’ve completed?

However, if you don’t have a formal degree, don’t fear! Many of the respondents with degrees don’t have a degree in their field—so it may not be of much value for their coding careers anyways.

Also, about one out of four don’t have a formal degree and still succeeds in their field! You certainly don’t need a degree if you’re committed to your own success!

Freelancing vs Employment Status

The percentage of freelance developers increases steadily. The fraction of freelance developers has already reached 11.21%!

This indicates that more and more work will be done in a more flexible work environment—and fewer and fewer companies and clients want to hire inflexible talent.

Here are the stats from the StackOverflow developer survey (source):

Do you want to become a professional freelance developer and earn some money on the side or as your primary source of income?

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Other Programming Languages Used by Professional Developers

The StackOverflow developer survey collected 58000 responses about the following question (source):

Which programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, and which do you want to work in over the next year?

These are the languages you want to focus on when starting out as a coder:

And don’t worry—if you feel stuck or struggle with a nasty bug. We all go through it. Here’s what SO survey respondents and professional developers do when they’re stuck:

What do you do when you get stuck on a problem? Select all that apply. (source)

Where to Go From Here?

Enough theory. Let’s get some practice!

Coders get paid six figures and more because they can solve problems more effectively using machine intelligence and automation. To become more successful in coding, solve more real problems for real people. That’s how you polish the skills you really need in practice. After all, what’s the use of learning theory that nobody ever needs?

You build high-value coding skills by working on practical coding projects!

Do you want to stop learning with toy projects and focus on practical code projects that earn you money and solve real problems for people?

If your answer is YES!, consider becoming a Python freelance developer! It’s the best way of approaching the task of improving your Python skills—even if you are a complete beginner.

Join my free webinar “How to Build Your High-Income Skill Python” and watch how I grew my coding business online and how you can, too—from the comfort of your own home.

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