Over a quarter of developers with more than a year in the profession started a new job in the previous year, and 42% of those who didn’t are contemplating or may consider quitting their positions this year. The developer skill deficit that exists now has the potential to intensify. These outcomes are part of DigitalOcean’s recent ‘Currents’ survey.
From April 19 to May 19, 2022, an online survey link was used to collect 2,598 completed responses for this ‘Currents’ survey. There are 94 nations represented among the respondents. The URL was sent out to a variety of sources, including DigitalOcean email lists and open source communities. Front end, back end, and full stack developers, system administrators, DevOps professionals, and other technical positions were all mentioned by respondents. Those who did not have technical duties were excluded from the survey.
Compensation and a desire for entirely remote or more flexible work conditions were also recognized as the top reasons developers are considering departing or have already departed, according to the research.
“Attracting and retaining developer talent is evolving rapidly and companies need to adapt to the new landscape,” said Gabe Monroy, Chief Product Officer at cloud provider DigitalOcean. “Businesses need to better understand developers and give them the tools, benefits, and pay they need to be successful – business survival in the digital era depends on it.”
Blockchain, Open Source
Other key findings of this market research include:
- Job satisfaction among developers may be low, but entrepreneurship is high – 8% of developers who have left or are planning to quit their jobs are doing so to establish their own businesses.
- In a challenging job market, developers are turning to the open source community – Developers claimed improved skills (35 percent), networking (19 percent), and career prospects as benefits of contributing to open source (11 percent ).
- Developers want to contribute to open source while on the clock – More than half of all software is written in open source code, according to 64 percent of businesses. Most corporations, on the other hand, do not provide time or money to their engineers to contribute to open source projects. During the workday, 79 percent of developers want to be able to contribute to open source, and the majority feel they should be compensated for their efforts.
- Developers are not buying into Web3/blockchain hype – Despite the excitement around blockchain and Web3 technologies, just 67 percent of developers have used them. They also have conflicting feelings about low-code: engineers with less expertise are more likely to appreciate its usefulness, whilst those with more experience believe it is overhyped.
There are 94 nations represented among the respondents, with 43 percent from the United States, 15 percent from India, 6 percent from Germany, 3% from Canada, 3% from the United Kingdom, and the remaining 30% distributed among the other countries. The gender split was 87 percent male, 8% female, 1% non-binary, and 4% who opted not to say or self-describe. 32 percent of respondents are between the ages of 25 and 34, 25% are between the ages of 35 and 44, 21% are under the age of 24, and 22% are 45 or over.
