The State of Developer Ecosystem at the Turn of 2022

So you may (or not) be aware that many companies present us with surveys about the current state of the developer ecosystem every year. It is a collection of the results of developer studies about the current state of the entire programming ecosystem combined into one. Developer ecosystems – meaning communities of software developers, resellers, and stakeholders – are now thought to be a must-have on the road to success. 7 out of 10 executives say they are the only way to innovate quickly and meet customer demands. In those reports, the curious ones of us can find not only the common trends in software development, most popular programming languages and frameworks, but also gain insights into which countries have the biggest number of software wizards or what motivates them to grow.

We’d like to present you with that information and expand it a little with our own insights about the developer community in a more palatable way. You can expect to find out what is the most popular programming language of 2021 or why retail is a great industry to look for engineering jobs. After all, before you build a developer ecosystem, you need a strategy first. Submerge yourself in the data and apply it to your business in order to make conscious decisions. And if that sounds like too much to handle, you can always chat with us, our experienced developers are ready to embark on your new project. Let’s go!

The most popular programming language of 2021

Let’s warm up a little and start with the most obvious question: what is the most popular programming language? The answer is simple, JavaScript. According to StackOverflow’s 2021 survey, JavaScript is the top of the top 9th year in a row as for most, programming is mostly web programming. Then there is HTML/CSS and Python, going head to head with SQL.

MySQL scored as the most popular database and PostgreSQL is closely behind. The ruling cloud platform is, no surprises there, AWS, but we can probably expect Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure to try to overtake it as they are constantly on the rise.

• Best web frameworks in the 2021 programming world

Now we can smoothly move on to the well-loved web frameworks. When it comes to the front-end, React.js is definitely the winner here, although jQuery treads on its heels. On the other hand, Express wins in the back-end, followed somewhere down the line by Django and Ruby on Rails.

We’re happy to say that the .NET framework overtook React Native and, may we add, by a lot. Why does that make us so excited? We believe that it’s the best choice for application development and simply because we love .NET. You can find out more in our post Why do we love .NET at CSHARK.

As a fun fact for you, we can say that nearly half of developers use Windows as their primary operating system. The rest of them are split in half between Linux and macOS fans.

What are the most common industries where developers thrive?

Some industries show a really high interest in hiring developers to work on their products. The main one is definitely retail, especially now, when everything seems to be switching to online. Nearly every big retailer now has a dedicated application or a powerful website with shopping functionality. Don’t believe that? The retail industry employs as many or more software engineers as Silicon Valley.

Then there is healthcare. The perfect opportunity to finally make mothers proud and say you’re saving lives. Software developers play an enormous role in the growth of the healthcare industry building clinical applications, cloud systems, and patient portals. And with the requirement for electronic medical records, the demand for software engineers still grows. We can even give you a perfect example of how software revolutionizes medicine – take a look at our case study for REGENHU.

According to Forbes, software specialists are also in high demand for government and social services jobs, since public administrations are transitioning to digital services.

We can’t forget about the future of today’s world – artificial intelligence and machine learning. The need for AI engineers is one of the fastest-growing areas while the big guys like Google quickly snatch the talents.

The worldwide pandemic has also shown a great need for digitalization for the education industry with learning management systems and educational platforms. Now more than ever, knowledge knows no borders.

How do developers learn to code?

Speaking of knowledge, let’s go back to the hard numbers. After carefully analyzing the statistics, we can clearly see that younger developers usually learn coding from online resources rather than at school. Their older peers choose a more traditional route and seek mastery in books and in class. Nearly 60% of responders in the Stack Overflow survey said they mainly learned from online resources.

Interestingly enough, more than 40% of developers have at least a Bachelor’s degree, so we can easily come to the conclusion that a lot of them are changing their existing careers to programming.

• What is the demographic of programmers?

Since nearly half of the 82,407 developers from the Stack Overflow survey have a degree, we can also easily determine their age. Nearly 40% of professionals fall between 25-34 years old, although Gen-Z is quickly catching up.

• What software do you develop?

When asking: ‘What software do you develop?’ JetBrains found that most JavaScript and PHP engineers work on websites. When we take into consideration plain Java or Python it’s almost half and a half between websites and utilities (or small apps for small tasks). Around 30% work on databases and data storage, no matter the language used. It’s also worth mentioning that 31% of Python developers work on business intelligence and machine learning while 37% Go specialists on building IT infrastructures.

The Developer State of Mind

Now let’s steer away from the serious data and have some fun with the responses. We came across the HackerEarth Developer Survey that dives deeper into the personal aspect of software development, including procrastination.

10% of the respondents say dimmed lights help them to be more productive (let’s not mention that 15% think unlimited coffee is their greatest ally). Working on multiple monitors and using noise-canceling headphones are also of great help. Did you know that there are headphones that can help you stay focused? We even worked on a project like that.

• Roadblocks faced by remote developers

23% of developers see a lack of human interaction as an issue when working from home. Many also lack proper motivation and are more likely to get distracted. They also sleep more and snack more (hello post-pandemic body).

Developer happiness is also closely related to the number of hours worked. Interestingly enough, those who work less than 40 hours a week reported a higher happiness index than those who work more and the index decreases as the work hours increase.

• How do developers destress?

Software engineers seem to appreciate a good walk as their number one way to destress. 20% of them listen to music and like to watch movies or TV shows. Naps also proved to be a battle-tested way to chill out. Interestingly enough, online and outdoor games seem to be working only for 10% of the respondents.

• What is the best music for software development?

Apparently, over 20% of developers like to code while listening to sounds of nature as well as classical music. Ambient sounds also seem to be great background noise for debugging and testing. Only less than 5% of respondents like to go heavy on heavy metal.

This is the playlist that CSHARK devs create together during the home office and #stayathome times. Maybe you will like it too!

How do developers look for jobs?

There’s no better place than LinkedIn when it comes to job applications. Most developers (50%!) view it as a reliable way to hunt for jobs and also to be found. After LinkedIn, there are job portals and referrals, with various Facebook and Google groups here and there. Interestingly enough 80% of HR professionals recruit developers with non-academic backgrounds, mostly focusing on the actual working experience of candidates.

HR pros also predict the market need for DevOps engineers will exceed the number of available specialists, making it harder to recruit skilled professionals.

• Developer salaries across industries

CodinGame gave us some insight into the salaries of software engineers in different industries. The security and technology industries are the best-paid, with the insurance and energy field falling close behind. There’s a roughly $15,000 difference in the annual salary between those high-paid industries and public administration or IT services.

Software architects and data scientists are the highest-paid developer positions. Wages for other positions like front-end developer or tester are considerably lower-scoring an average of $34,946.

The highest median value of an annual net salary in USD goes to people in the United States. In Canada and the UK, you can get close to half of it.

When rummaging through the internet for statistics of average developer salaries we are going to discover that, no surprises there, the highest paying country for software engineers is the USA. However, in Europe, Switzerland takes the cake for the highest average salary. Those are followed by Israel in the 3rd place.

If we were to narrow our focus to Europe-only, Denmark would fall behind Switzerland and then Norway.

If we look at the average salary in major European cities we will discover that Munich and Berlin are the places to be both for back-end and front-end developers, no matter their experience. Then we have Amsterdam and London (although you will get paid more as a front-end specialist than a back-end one in the UK).

The Future of Developer Ecosystem

JetBrains asked developers whether they plan to adopt or migrate to other programming languages in 2022 and half of them said no – no matter the language they’re currently using (however, Go specialists seem to be the happiest with their choice). If there were to be some changes, JavaScript users would most likely transition to TypeScript or Go, while Go developers chose Rust.

We will also be probably seeing an increasing number of emigrants. As of 2021, the most commonly emigrating were devs from Ukraine and Belarus. Canada and the United Kingdom seem to be the best place to be with 29% and 23% immigration rates respectively.

Conclusions

Developer surveys are always quite an interesting read, providing insights not only into the most popular languages and frameworks but also the fun parts like music that supports code creation best.
We cannot wait to see how those trends will change in the future, so you can be sure we’ll keep you posted on the freshest State of Development Ecosystem in years to come.

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