26 practical findings of the Stack Overflow developer survey
Over 40 million people visit Stack Overflow every month, making it the no. 1 destination for professional and enthusiast developers seeking help with technical questions.
By encouraging practical, detailed questions rather that chit-chat or opinion-based questions, their goal is to build a library of detailed answers to every question about programming.
Stack Overflow recently released the 2016 Developer Survey results. With over 56,000 respondents, this is the most comprehensive developer survey ever conducted.
Here are some of the key facts that we found interesting:
1). 46 million people visited Stack Overflow in January 2016, 15 million of them being professional developers.
2). 28% of respondents consider themselves Full-stack Developers. They are comfortable coding with 5 or 6 languages or frameworks.
3). For the first time, more developers are using Mac than Linux as their primary OS.
4). JavaScript is the most commonly used programming language on earth. Even Back-End developers are more likely to use it than any other language.
5). The average developer is 29.6 years old. The median is 27.
6). The average developer has about 6.5 years IT or programming experience. Experience means building things, not necessarily being paid for it, since the average student says they have 3.4 years experience. This is not surprising at all, considering 11.4% of respondents are currently students.
7). Star Wars is the sci-fi choice, preferred by the younger developer.
8). According to Quantcast, about 12% of Stack Overflow’s readers are women. However, only 5.8% responded to this survey, demonstrating a dramatic disparity in tech among men and women.
9). 69% of all developers say they are at least partly self-taught. 13% of respondents across the globe say they are only self-taught.
10). More people use JavaScript than use any other programming language.
11). 66% of developers are using React and want to continue using it. Another 9.2%, who are not using React, expressed interest in developing with it.
12.) More people use JavaScript than use any other programming language.
13). Interest shown in React technology has increased by 311.3% since last year, making React the top trending tech on Stack Overflow.
14). For full-stack and front-end developers, the top paying tech are Cloud, React, Redis, Node.js and Angular.
15). 67.8% of respondents are full-time employed. 7.1% are freelancers or contractors.
16). Only 14.8% of developers are actively looking for a new job. 63.1% of them are open to new opportunities, even though they are not actively looking.
17). In most countries, referrals from friends are the most common way developers find new jobs.
18). Learning new technologies and building something new — are the two most popular objectives, once developers have a job.
19). Unrealistic expectations, poor documentation, and unspecific requirements are the most common workplace gripes for developers.
20). Montreal, Berlin, Prune and Bangalore are the most affordable cities to live in, with only 13–16 % of salary being spent on rent. Austin, Texas is the top city in the US for devs who don’t want to spend all their money on rent.
21). The average developer in South Africa can afford the most Big Macs per year, that is more than 25,000. The Big Mac Index is used to compare purchasing power for developers living in different countries.
22). About 12% of developers work remote full-time. Remote developers are more likely to love their job than other developers.
23). 57% of developers tell us they check-in or commit code multiple times per day.
24). Over half of developers say they visit Stack Overflow multiple times a day, and 78% of developers visit Stack Overflow daily.
25). The vast majority of developers use Stack Overflow to get help for their job. Most also use Stack Overflow because they love to learn.
26). In 2015, 2.7 million questions were asked on Stack Overflow. 3.2 million answers were submitted.
Thanks to Stack Overflow, we know more about who developers are, where they work and what they build.
Here is the link for the 2016 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results in full.
Mihaela, on behalf of Essence team
