This yr, we’re not simply amassing information; we’re reflecting on the final yr of questions, solutions, hallucinations, job adjustments, tech stacks, reminiscence allocations, fashions, techniques and brokers—collectively.
Fifteen years. Few things in the technology community last as long as fifteen years, and the 15th Annual Stack Overflow Developer Survey is in good firm with the opposite group areas which have made it 15 or extra years (hi there, YouTube and Wikipedia). In actual fact, we’re questioning what sort of on-line communities Stack Overflow customers proceed to help within the age of AI and whether or not AI is turning into a better companion than ever earlier than. This yr, we’re not simply amassing information; we’re reflecting on the final yr of questions, solutions, hallucinations, job adjustments, tech stacks, reminiscence allocations, fashions, techniques and brokers—collectively.
Final yr’s survey unveiled some thought-provoking insights that we’re desirous to revisit and delve deeper into.
Developer happiness: A key discovering from current surveys highlighted a major statistic: 80% of builders reported being unhappy or complacent of their jobs. This raised questions on altering workplace (and return-to-office) tradition and the pressures of the trade, together with whether or not there have been any insights into what may assist builders really feel extra happy at work. Prior research confirmed that flexibility at work used to contribute greater than wage to job satisfaction, however 2024’s outcomes present us that distant work shouldn’t be extra impactful than wage relating to general satisfaction. Evaluating some key teams that confirmed increased variabilities in job satisfaction:
- Within the U.S., Germany, and the U.Ok., hybrid and distant builders hover round 7 out of 10 in job satisfaction (the blissful vary for job satisfaction was 8 – 10). A rise is simply noticeable among the many high 25% in wage equally for these in distant or on-site roles.
- Job satisfaction remained constant amongst all wage quartiles for engineering managers, embedded builders, and desktop builders. Job satisfaction elevated among the many high 25% in wage for cellular, back-end, and full-stack builders, elevating them out of the complacent vary and into the blissful vary.
- For roles that weren’t as affected by wage and indicated their job satisfaction was within the blissful vary, embedded builders had been extra prone to point out “working with top-quality {hardware}” contributing to their job satisfaction, desktop builders had been extra prone to point out “contributing to open supply,” and engineering managers had been extra prone to point out “driving technique”.
The evolving panorama of developer salaries: In 2024, our information confirmed that many builders skilled a pay lower in numerous roles and programming specialties. In an trade typically seen as extremely profitable, this was a notable shift of round 7% decrease salaries throughout the highest ten reporting nations for a similar roles. This yr, we’re eager about whether or not this pattern has continued, reversed, or stabilized. Wage dynamics is an indicator for job satisfaction in current surveys of Stack Overflow customers and understanding traits for these roles can maybe enhance the method for locating probably the most helpful components contributing to position satisfaction outdoors of wage.
- Roles that had the most important optimistic shift in 2024 from this information had been engineering managers within the UK (+21%), and front-end devs within the UK (+15.5%) and the Netherlands (+15%)
- Roles that had the most important detrimental shift in 2024 had been all within the Ukraine: Full-stack (-44%), front-end (-41%), and back-end builders (-39%)
- Roles with near no change in wage in 2024 had been all in Germany: full-stack, embedded purposes, and desktop/enterprise purposes builders all hovered at 0.3% change
AI: AI adoption is climbing however sentiment is stalled. Synthetic intelligence continues its fast integration into the developer workflow, with increasingly builders leveraging AI instruments for duties from code technology to documentation. Nonetheless, final yr’s survey additionally revealed an enchanting dichotomy: whereas AI utilization is rising (70% in 2023 vs. 76% in 2024 planning to or at the moment utilizing AI instruments), developer sentiment is not essentially following go well with, as 77% in of all respondents in 2023 are favorable or very favorable of AI instruments for growth in comparison with 72% of all respondents in 2024. Issues about accuracy and misinformation had been prevalent amongst some key teams:
- Extra builders studying to code are utilizing or are eager about utilizing AI instruments than skilled builders (84% vs. 77%).
- Entrance-end (69%), cellular (65%), and full-stack (65%) builders are the roles with highest utilization of AI instruments.
- Builders with 10 – 19 years expertise had been most definitely (84%) to call “enhance in productiveness” as a good thing about AI instruments, increased than builders with much less expertise (<80%).
- Builders from India had the very best proportion of customers that discover AI instruments reliable (59%) and Germany had the very best proportion of those who decidedly didn’t belief AI instruments (42%)
A lot has occurred in a yr. In some way, much more has occurred in a yr in tech. We proceed to ask our group about all of it.
- Is it an AI agent revolution but? Are you constructing or using AI brokers? We wish to know the way these clever assistants are altering your every day workflow and if builders are actually utilizing them as a lot as these keynote speeches assume. We’re asking in case you are utilizing these instruments and the place people are nonetheless wanted for frequent developer duties.
- Profession shifts: We’re eager to know for those who’ve thought of a profession change or transitioned roles and if AI is impacting your strategy to studying or utilizing current instruments. Did we make up the distinction in salaries globally for tech staff?
- Neighborhood: We’re asking extra group questions this yr, not solely as a result of group is the inspiration of the Developer Survey but in addition as a result of it informs a bigger understanding of how AI is admittedly remodeling on-line areas.
Step one to getting actual insights about builders and the know-how group is to take the survey to explore all the brand new questions and assist us inform the worldwide group what actual builders are doing right now!
