Typical duties and responsibilities
A technology applications engineer is responsible for designing and improving software. They perform need evaluations with a client to understand their unique goals, and then implement it after careful assessment. The core duties and responsibilities of an applications engineer include:
- Providing tech support to clients
- Providing hardware upgrades where necessary
- Understanding client-base and making sales recommendations
- Documenting an inventory of a system
- Serving as a point of contact for clients and answering questions
Qualifications
To land a job as a technology applications engineer, you will normally need to complete a bachelors degree in computer science or a related subject. ,
Skills and work experience
To become an applications engineer, you will need experience in the field (e.g., you will need to know a great deal about programming languages, development and design enterprise programs). As well as this, application engineers will also need skills such as:
- Critical thinking, as they will need to use logic to identify the strengths and weaknesses with a particular problem
- Time management, as they are likely to have to work to strict deadlines that their client has set
- Problem-solving, as application engineers will need to solve a huge range of technical problems in their daily life
- Communication skills, as application engineers need to be able to communicate effectively with clients
Hours
You can expect to be working full-time in normal business hours (Monday to Friday). However, sometimes you will need to be on call and work outside of normal business hours!
Salary
According to PayScale, the average salary for an applications engineer in the United States is $30,843 annually. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $23,000 and the highest 10 percent earned over $43,000 per year.
Progression
Typically, application engineers will start their career working in roles with less responsibility, and by working under the supervision of someone more experience. However, as they gather more experience, there are options for them to advance into more senior and specialized roles. Application engineers can also progress further by become self-employed or owning their own business.