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GLOBAL DEVELOPER HIRING LANDSCAPE 2018

2018 GLOBAL DEVELOPER HIRING LANDSCAPE...Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018 4 Developer Type Over half of our respondents identified as Back-End Developers. Location Developers

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Page 1: 2018 GLOBAL DEVELOPER HIRING LANDSCAPE...Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018 4 Developer Type Over half of our respondents identified as Back-End Developers. Location Developers

GLOBAL DEVELOPER HIRING LANDSCAPE

2018

Page 2: 2018 GLOBAL DEVELOPER HIRING LANDSCAPE...Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018 4 Developer Type Over half of our respondents identified as Back-End Developers. Location Developers

Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018

2

Methodology• Qualified Responses Worldwide

Demographics• Location

• Developer Type

• Gender

• Age

Education• Professional & Student Developers

• Educational Attainment

• Field of Study

• Non-Degree Education

• Bootcamps

• Hackathons

• Years Since First Learning to Code

Work• Employment Status

• Company Size

• Industry

• Career & Job Satisfaction

• Five-Year Plan

• Job-Seeking Status

• Last Job

• What’s Important in a New Job

• How to Contact Developers

• What Benefits Are Important

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What to Say When Recruiting Developers

• The Job Search Process

• Salary

• Coding as a Hobby

• Connection & Competition

• Committing Code

Technology• Programming Languages

• Database Environments

• Platforms

• Libraries, Frameworks, & Tools

• Development Environments

• Operating Systems

• Methodologies

• Version Control

• Knowledge-Sharing & Communication Tools

• Correlated Technologies

Artificial Intelligence• What Developers Think About AI

• Responsibilities for Considering Ramifications of AI

• The Future of AI

Stack Overflow• Visits

• Participation

• How to Describe

In today’s world, nearly every company is making the necessary shift towards embracing technology. Those that don’t are moving down a path towards eventual irrelevance. Naturally, developers are essential to this movement and therefore essential to every company’s survival. Successful companies can embrace technology by investing in hiring developers, ensuring they are efficient and productive, and evangelizing their technology to support the company’s greater mission.

To achieve all of the above, it’s important to truly understand developers.

As the largest, most trusted online developer community, more than 50 million professional and aspiring programmers visit Stack Overflow each month. Each year, we survey the programming community on topics ranging from their ideal working environment to their thoughts on artificial intelligence.

Over 100,000 respondents from around the world participated this year, making it the world’s largest and most comprehensive developer survey. Discover everything you need to know about developers with The Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018.

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Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018

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METHODOLOGYThis report is based on a survey of 101,592 software developers from 183 countries around the world. This number of responses are what we consider “qualified” for analytical purposes based on completion and time spent on the survey. Approximately 20,000 additional responses were started, but not included in the analysis because respondents did not answer enough questions. Of the qualified responses, 67,441 (66.4%) completed the entire survey.

Qualified Responses Worldwide • The survey was fielded from January 8 to January 28.

• The median time spent on the survey for qualified responses was 25.8 minutes, and the median time for those who finished the entire survey was 29.4 minutes.

• Respondents were recruited primarily through channels owned by Stack Overflow. The top 5 sources of respondents were banner ads, email lists, house ads, blog posts, and Twitter. Since respondents were recruited in this way, highly engaged users on Stack Overflow were more likely to notice the links for the survey and click to begin it. Respondents who finished the survey were awarded a “Census” badge as a motivation to complete the survey.

• We treated responses as qualified for analysis if the user spent a certain amount of time relative to how far they got into the survey. Most survey responses that spent less than 5 minutes were excluded from the final sample.

• We asked respondents about their salary. First, we asked what currency each respondent typically used. Then we asked that respondent what their salary was in that currency, and whether that salary was weekly, monthly, or yearly.

• For a short time on the first day, there was a bug that left out the last part of the question (weekly vs. monthly vs. yearly); those salary responses are not included here.

• We converted salaries from user currencies to USD using the exchange rate on 2018-01-18, and also converted to annual salaries assuming 12 working months and 50 working weeks.

• This question, like most on the survey, was optional. There were 58,650 respondents (57.7% of qualified respondents) who gave us salary data.

• The top approximately 1% of salaries inside and outside of the US were trimmed and replaced with threshold values. The threshold values for inside and outside the US were different.

• Many questions were only shown to respondents based on their previous answers. For example, questions about jobs and work were only shown to those who said they were working in a job.

• The questions were organized into several blocks of questions, which were randomized in order. Also, the answers to most questions were randomized in order.

• Due to an error, Oracle and SQLite were excluded from the question about databases for the first day of the survey. We carefully examined whether the results for the other databases changed from the first day compared to the rest of the survey fielding period and they did not. The results shown here for database use and most loved/dreaded/wanted databases only use responses from after Oracle and SQLite were added to the possible answers.

EUROPE

39,001NORTH AMERICA

25,016

ASIA

24,700SOUTH AMERICA

4,162

AFRICA

2,869AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA

2,591

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Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018

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Developer TypeOver half of our respondents identified as Back-End Developers.

LocationDevelopers live (and code) all over the world. This year, about 20% of our respondents said they are located in the United States. The next-most represented countries are India, Germany, the UK, and Canada.

United States

India

Germany

United Kingdom

Canada

Russian Federation

France

Brazil

Poland

20.6%

13.9%

6.6%

6.3%

3.4%

2.9%

2.6%

2.5%

2.2%

Australia

Netherlands

Spain

Italy

Ukraine

Sweden

Pakistan

China

Switzerland

Turkey

Israel

Iran, Islamic Republic of...

Romania

Austria

Czech Republic

Belgium

DEMOGRAPHICSDevelopers all over the world are writing the script for the future. Here’s what they look like.

57.9%

48.2%

37.8%

20.4%

17.2%

17.1%

14.3%

13.1%

11.3%

10.4%

8.2%

7.7%

6.7%

5.7%

5.2%

5%

4.7%

4%

3.8%

1.2%

Back-end developer

Full-stack developer

Front-end developer

Mobile developer

Desktop or enterprise applications developer

Student

Database administrator

Designer

System administrator

DevOps specialist

Data or business analyst

Data scientist or machine learning specialist

QA or test developer

Engineering manager

Embedded applications or devices developer

Game or graphics developer

Product manager

Educator or academic researcher

C-suite executive (CEO, CTO, etc.)

Marketing or sales professional

2%

1.9%

1.8%

1.6%

1.3%

1.2%

1.1%

1.1%

1%

1%

1%

0.9%

0.8%

0.8%

0.8%

0.8%

GenderOver 90% of our respondents are male. According to Quantcast, women account for about 10% of Stack Overflow’s US traffic—this year 9% of US survey respondents are women. Therefore, we had survey participation at almost the rate we would expect from our traffic.

AgeAbout three-quarters of professional developers who took our survey are younger than 35.

Male

Under 18 years old

35 - 44 years old

65 years or older

45 - 54 years old

55 - 64 years old

18 - 24 years old

25 - 34 years old

Non-binary, genderqueer, or gender non-conforming

Transgender

Female92.7%

0.9% 0.7%

1.9%

18.2% 5.1% 1.4%

0.2%

22.4% 50.8%

6.8%

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Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018

5

EDUCATIONSee how the world’s developers are learning to code through traditional and non-traditional forms of education.

Professional & Student DevelopersDevelopers in all stages of their careers come to Stack Overflow, including professionals, hobbyists, and students. About one-quarter of this year’s respondents are currently enrolled in a full-time or part-time formal college or university program.

Educational AttainmentAbout three-quarters of professional developers worldwide have the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree or higher. However, it’s not rare to find accomplished professional developers who haven’t completed a degree or any type of “formal” schooling.

Currently Enrolled

I never completed any formal education

Primary/elementary school

Secondary school

Some college/university study without earning a degree

Associate degree

Bachelor’s degree

Master’s degree

Professional degree

Doctoral degree

0.6%

1.3%

8.2%

12.1%

3.1%

47.7%

23.2%

1.5%

2.2%

Highest Level of Education Completed

No

74.2%

Yes, full-time

19.4%

Yes, part-time

6.4%

Field of StudyOver 60% of professional developers who studied at the university level said they majored in computer science, computer engineering, or software engineering. Additionally, this proportion is somewhat higher in currently-enrolled students (about 70%).

The proportion of respondents majoring in other engineering disciplines, like electrical and mechanical engineering, is lower among current students than among professionals.

64.4%

8.5%

8.3%

3.6%

3.5%

3.1%

2.3%

2%

1.7%

1.4%

0.8%

0.3%

63.7%

8.8%

8.2%

3.9%

3.6%

3.1%

2.4%

2%

1.7%

1.4%

0.9%

0.3%

Computer science, computer engineering, or software engineering

Another engineering discipline (ex. civil, electrical, mechanical)

Information systems, information technology, or system administration

A natural science (ex. biology, chemistry, physics)

Mathematics or statistics

Web development or web design

A business discipline (ex. accounting, finance, marketing)

A humanities discipline (ex. literature, history, philosophy)

A social science (ex. anthropology, psychology, political science)

Fine arts or performing arts (ex. graphic design, music, studio art)

I never declared a major

A health science (ex. nursing, pharmacy, radiology)

Fields of Study of Professional Developers

Fields of Study of Student Developers

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Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018EDUCATION

6

Tapping your network of friends, family, and peers versed in the technology

A college/university computer science or software engineering book

Internal Wikis, chat rooms, or documentation set up by my company for employees

Pre-scheduled tutoring or mentoring sessions with a friend or colleague

Non-Degree EducationDevelopers are lifelong learners—almost 90% of all developers say they have taught themselves a new language, framework, or tool outside of their formal education. Among professional developers, almost half say they have taken an online course like a MOOC, and about a quarter have participated in a hackathon.

We also asked developers the ways that they learn new skills or languages. Good documentation ranked highly, as did Stack Overflow Q&A.

Ways Developers Learn on Their Own

83.5%

82.8%

50.4%

50%

48.3%

The official documentation and/or standards for the technology

Questions & answers on Stack Overflow

A book or e-book from O’Reilly, Apress, or a similar publisher

Online developer communities other than Stack Overflow

The technology’s online help system

Non-Traditional Ways to Learn

24.5%

17.8%

14.1%

10.5%

Participated in online coding competitions (e.g. HackerRank, CodeChef, TopCoder)

Taken a part-time in-person course in programming or software development

Completed an industry certification program (e.g. MCPD)

Participated in a full-time developer training program or bootcamp

19.2%

19.2%

16.4%

4.1%

Taught yourself a new language, framework, or tool without taking a formal course

Taken an online course in programming or software development (e.g. a MOOC)

Contributed to open source software

Received on-the-job training in software development

Participated in a hackathon

87%

48.6%

41.6%

36.1%

26.9%

BootcampsBootcamps are typically perceived as a way for newcomers to transition into a career as a software developer— but according to our survey, many participants in coding bootcamps were already working as developers. Almost half of our respondents who went to a coding bootcamp said they were already working as developers (these developers are likely updating their skills and moving to new areas of the tech industry.) Of other bootcamp participants, the most common outcome is to find a job immediately or soon after graduating.

Bootcamp Success

45.5%

16.3%

7.5%

10%

I already had a full-time job as a developer when I began the program

Immediately after graduating

Less than a month

One to three months

Four to six months

Six months to a year

Longer than a year

I haven’t gotten a developer job

5.2%

3.6%

3.2%

8.7%

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Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018EDUCATION

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HackathonsWe asked our respondents who said they have participated in hackathons or online coding competitions why they invest their time this way. The number one answer is that developers find these events enjoyable. Hackathons are also great opportunities for learning, both general and specific.

Years Since Learning to CodeThere’s a wide range of experience levels among developers. One-third of professional developers say they learned to code within the past five years.

We also asked developers how long they had been coding professionally. Over 57% of developers have less than five years of professional coding experience.

Lastly, we can look at the differences in years of experience by developer type. DevOps Specialists and developers who code for desktop and enterprise applications have the most experience, while Game/Graphics Developers and Mobile Developers have the fewest years of experience.

9.6%

24.4%

21.4%

13.5%

8.9%

6.8%

5.6%

2.9%

2%

1.2%

3.8%

0-2 years

3-5 years

6-8 years

9-11 years

12-14 years

15-17 years

18-20 years

21-23 years

24-26 years

27-29 years

30 or more years

30.1%

27.4%

14.6%

9.7%

5.5%

3.9%

3.6%

1.8%

1.1%

0.6%

1.7%

Years Since Professional Developers Learned to Code

How Long Developers Have Been Coding Professionally

Years of Experience by Developer Type

10.2

8

7.7

7.5

7.2

7

6.9

6.3

6.2

6.2

6

5.8

5.5

5.5

5.2

4.6

Engineering manager

DevOps specialist

Desktop or enterprise applications developer

Embedded applications or devices developer

Data or business analyst

System administrator

Database administrator

Full-stack developer

Back-end developer

Educator or academic researcher

Designer

QA or test developer

Front-end developer

Data scientist or machine learning specialist

Mobile developer

Game or graphics developer

76.3% Because I find it enjoyable

66.1%To improve my general technical skills or programming ability

51.2%

To improve my knowledge of a specific programming language, framework, or other technology

30%To improve my ability to work on a team with other programmers

27.5% To build my professional network

20.8% To help me find new job opportunities

18.9% To win prizes or cash awards

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Employment StatusOver 90% of developers are employed at least part-time, making the developer employment rate much higher than those of other professions. Only 16% of developers are actively looking for a job, putting additional pressure on the employers who are competing to hire tech talent.

76.9%

10%

5.1%

5%

2.8%

0.2%

Employed full-time

Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed

Employed part-time

Not employed, but looking for work

Not employed, and not looking for work

Retired

IndustryDevelopers work in a diverse range of industries, both inside and outside of technology. Web development or design was the most common industry for professional developers to work in.

16.3%

10.8%

10.8%

10.5%

10%

8.8%

7.2%

5.8%

5.3%

5.1%

5%

4.5%

Web development or design

Other industry not listed here

Information technology

Software as a service (SaaS) development

Other software development

Financial technology or services

Cloud-based solutions or services

Data and analytics

Consulting

Media, advertising, publishing, or entertainment

Retail or eCommerce

Healthcare technology or services

Company SizeDevelopers work for companies of all sizes, ranging from small startups to enterprise organizations.

4.2% 13.6%5,000 to 9,999 employees 10,000 or more employees

10.7%1,000 to 4,999 employees

23.8%20 to 99 employees

10.5%Fewer than 10 employees

19.6%100 to 499 employees

11.2%10 to 19 employees

6.5%500 to 999 employees

WORKNearly every company employs developers. Here’s an inside look at the industries they work in and the companies they work for.

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Career & Job SatisfactionDevelopers tend to be more satisfied with their career in general than with their current job. Overall, career satisfaction does not vary significantly by industry. However, current job satisfaction is significantly lower for developers working in financial services and IT.

Career Satisfaction of Developers

3.4%

6.9%

8.6%

8.3%

17.6%

36.5%

18.7%

Extremely dissatisfied

Moderately dissatisfied

Slightly dissatisfied

Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied

Slightly satisfied

Moderately satisfied

Extremely satisfied

3.6%

9.1%

10.2%

7.2%

14.5%

37.5%

18%

Extremely dissatisfied

Moderately dissatisfied

Slightly dissatisfied

Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied

Slightly satisfied

Moderately satisfied

Extremely satisfied

Five-Year PlanThis year, we asked developers what they hope to be doing in five years time. Developers’ career goals are largely focused on technical work, with just over half of respondents saying they want to be in the same or a different technical role in the future. About a quarter of developers say they want to start their own company.

What Developers Want to be Doing in Five Years

33.9%

25.7%

19.4%

9.9%

6.6%

2.8%

1.7%

Working in a different or more specialized technical role than the one I’m in now

Working as a founder or co-founder of my own company

Doing the same work

Working as an engineering manager or other functional manager

Working as a product manager or project manager

Working in a career completely unrelated to software development

Retirement

Job Satisfaction of Developers

Job-Seeking StatusWhile a full three-quarters of developers are interested in hearing about new job opportunities, only 16% are actively looking.

I’m not actively looking, but I am open to new opportunities

I am not interested in new job opportunities

I am actively looking for a job59.8% 24.3% 15.9%

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18.5%

18.1%

18%

17.9%

17.9%

17.7%

16%

15.6%

15.4%

Educator or academic researcher

Mobile developer

Data scientist or machine learning specialist

Data or business analyst

Game or graphics developer

Designer

Front-end developer

Database administrator

Back-end developer

QA or test developer

Full-stack developer

Embedded applications or devices developer

System administrator

Desktop or enterprise applications developer

Engineering manager

DevOps specialist

Product manager

C-suite executive (CEO, CTO, etc.)

15.3%

15.2%

14.8%

14.5%

14.4%

13.6%

13.5%

13%

12%

Developers Who Are Actively Looking for a Job

Last JobFrequent job changes for developers are the norm—about half of developers have taken a new job within the past two years.

Of the 16% of professional developers who are actively looking for a job, those who work at the C-level or as Engineering Managers are looking for work the least. Mobile Developers and Game/Graphics Developers are looking for work at higher proportions.

Less than a year ago

Between 1 and 2 years ago

Between 2 and 4 years ago

More than 4 years ago

I’ve never had a job

34.6% 22% 18.8%

18.9% 5.8%

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What’s Important in a New JobDevelopers assess potential jobs differently than their counterparts. Overall, their top priorities in a new job are the compensation and benefits offered, followed by the specific technologies that they’ll work with.

We looked into this criteria further by gender. We found that developers who are not men rank the company’s culture and office environment as their highest concern when assessing a new job. If you’re looking to diversify your workforce, be sure to keep this in mind.

The compensation and benefits offered

The languages, frameworks, and other technologies I’d be working with

Opportunities for professional development

The office environment or company culture

The opportunity to work from home/remotely

The industry that I’d be working in

How widely used or impactful the product or service I’d be working on is

The specific department or team I’d be working on

The financial performance or funding status of the company or organization

The diversity of the company or organization

How Developers Assess Potential Jobs

18.3%

17.3%

16%

13.6%

10.3%

7.4%

6.5%

5.5%

3.4%

1.6%

Highest Priority

2.8%

3.2%

2.6%

3%

12.5%

13.7%

9.2%

8.6%

14.1%

30.4%

Lowest Priority

19%

17.6%

15.7%

13.5%

10.3%

7.3%

6.6%

5.5%

3.3%

1.3%

What MenLook For

14.1%

16.4%

16.8%

16.9%

10.2%

7.3%

5.4%

5.9%

2.6%

4.3%

What WomenLook For

14.6%

15.9%

10.7%

22.5%

11.9%

9.3%

7%

6.4%

1.8%

13.9%

What Non-Binary Developers Look For

How to Contact DevelopersWe asked developers how they would prefer to be contacted about a job that is a good fit, and by far they choose an email to their personal address as their top option. An email to their work address is ranked lowest.

Email to my private address

63.9% Telephone call13.7% Message on a job site

10.9%

Email to my work address

7.2% Message on a social media site

4.3%

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Childcare benefit

Parental leave

Company-provided meals or snacks

Fitness or wellness benefit (ex. gym membership, nutritionist)

Stock options or shares

Transportation benefit (ex. company-provided transportation, public transit allowance)

Retirement or pension savings matching

Conference or education budget

Computer/office equipment allowance

Health insurance

Salary and/or bonuses

What Benefits are ImportantWhen developers are assesing a potential job, they care most about their salary and/or bonuses. They care less about things like fitness benefits and company-provided meals.

What Developers Value in Benefits and Compensation - Highest Priority

What Developers Value in Benefits and Compensation - Lowest Priority

70.2%

8.6%

4.7%

3.6%

3.2%

2.1%

2%

1.5%

1.5%

1.4%

1.1%

Salary and/or bonuses

Health insurance

Computer/office equipment allowance

Conference or education budget

Stock options or shares

Retirement or pension savings matching

Parental leave

Fitness or wellness benefit (ex. gym membership, nutritionist)

Transportation benefit (ex. company-provided transportation, public transit allowance)

Company-provided meals or snacks

Childcare benefit

21.7%

14.1%

12.3%

11.1%

10.3%

9.5%

6.5%

5%

4.8%

4%

0.7%

What to Say When Recruiting DevelopersWhen we asked developers to rank what they most want to see in an email from a company about a prospective job, the top choices are specific details about technologies used at the job and a salary estimate.

21.7%

21%

19.9%

19.7%

8.2%

6%

3.4%

An estimate of the compensation range

Details on the company I’d be working for

Specifics of why they think I’d be a good fit for the role (ex. my prior work history, projects on GitHub)

Details of which technologies I’d be working with

Details on the specific department I’d be working for or product I’d be working on

Information on the company’s hiring process

Details on the company’s product development process

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The Job Search ProcessWe asked developers what they found annoying, exhausting, interesting, and exciting about the process of searching for a new job in separate free response questions. Respondents talked about the new opportunities, technologies, and people that a new job can offer, but expressed frustration with broken processes around interviews and recruiting.

Words Used to Describe the Annoying Part of Job Searching

Words Used to Describe the Exhausting Part of Job Searching

18.5%

17.8%

10.4%

10%

7%

4.8%

4.6%

3.9%

3.8%

3.7%

3.4%

3.3%

3.1%

3.1%

3.1%

3%

2.9%

2.8%

2.8%

2.8%

interview

job

company

finding

recruiter

time

waiting

getting

application

good

letter

process

work

resume

find

right

writing

searching

fit

interviewing

19.8%

13.3%

12.3%

9.8%

6.6%

5%

4.3%

4.2%

3.5%

3.4%

3.3%

3.2%

3.2%

3.1%

3.1%

2.9%

2.9%

2.9%

2.7%

2.7%

job

interview

recruiter

company

time

finding

salary

getting

process

information

application

employer

lack

experience

work

resume

response

waiting

offer

people

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new

company

opportunity

people

technology

seeing

learning

job

interview

finding

different

work

know

getting

meeting

interesting

get

working

market

thing

Words Used to Describe the Interesting Part of Job Searching

32.7%

18%

12.8%

9.5%

9.4%

8.7%

8.2%

7.9%

7.8%

6.3%

5.8%

5.4%

5%

4.7%

4.6%

3.9%

2.8%

2.8%

2.7%

2.7%

new

opportunity

company

people

job

interview

technology

getting

work

finding

learning

meeting

know

seeing

salary

thing

challenge

working

different

something

42%

16.7%

9.8%

8.9%

8.6%

7.6%

6.6%

6.4%

5.9%

5.8%

5.4%

4.5%

3.4%

3.4%

3.1%

3.1%

2.9%

2.9%

2.8%

2.8%

Words Used to Describe the Exciting Part of Job Searching

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Salary and Experience by Developer Type

Average years of professional programming experience

Med

ian

sala

ry (U

SD)

$90,

000

$80,

000

$70,

000

$60,

000

$50,

000

$40,

000

6 8 107 9 11

Number of respondents10,000 20,000

Engineering manager

Database administrator

Data scientist

Data or business analyst

Full-stack developer

Back-end developer

System administratorQA or test developerFront-end developer

Designer

Educator or academic researcher

Game or graphics developer

Mobile developer

Embedded/devices developer

Desktop or enterprise applications developer

Product manager

DevOps specialist

CTO/CEO/etc

$ 89,000

$ 72,000

$ 60,000

$ 59,000

$ 59,000

$ 59,000

$ 57,000

$ 56,000

$ 56,000

$ 55,000

$ 51,000

$ 51,000

$ 46,000

$ 44,000

$ 43,000

$ 40,000

Engineering manager

DevOps specialist

Data scientist or machine learning specialist

Data or business analyst

Embedded applications or devices developer

Full-stack developer

Desktop or enterprise applications developer

Back-end developer

System administrator

QA or test developer

Database administrator

Front-end developer

Designer

Educator or academic researcher

Mobile developer

Game or graphics developer

SalaryAcross the globe, Engineering Managers, DevOps Specialists, and Data Scientists command the highest salaries.

Naturally, developers with more years of experience are paid more—but we also see that some type of coding work is paid more highly at the same level of experience. Data Scientists and DevOps Specialists are high earners for their level of experience.

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Developers using languages that appear above the yellow line in this chart, such as Go, Clojure, and F#, are being paid more even given how much experience they have. Developers using languages below the blue line, like PHP and Visual Basic 6, however, are paid less even given years of experience. The size of the circles in this chart represents how many developers are using that language compared to the others.

Salary and Experience by Programming Language

Footnote

See our Methodology section for information on how we converted local currencies used by respondents to U.S. dollars

Average years of professional programming experience

Med

ian

sala

ry (U

SD)

$80,000

$70,000

$60,000

$50,000

6 8 10 12

Number of respondents

10,000 20,000 30,000

Clojure

F#

Cobol

Visual Basic 6

ScalaHack

Rust

Ocami

Go

Erlang

Groovy

Perl

C#

Objective-C

Kotlin

Java

Swift

Julia

Python

Bash/Shell

Matlab

Haskell

CoffeeScript

TypeScript

Ruby

Assembly

JavaScript

CSS

C++

C

R

Delphi/Object Pascal

HTML

SQL

PHP

VBA

Lua

VB.NET

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3.6 5 2.7 5 2.2 5

Coding as a HobbyLots of developers code outside of work—in fact, over 80% of respondents said that they code as a hobby.

Additionally, 56% of respondents said that they contribute to open source projects.

Committing CodeThe majority of developers check in code multiple times per day, and professional developers are less likely to check in code “never” or “rarely”.

How Many Developers Code Outside of Work

How Many Developers Contribute to Open Source

Connection & CompetitionWe asked respondents how much they agree or disagree with several statements about their place in the developer community. Overall, 70% of developers agree or strongly agree that they feel a sense of connection with other developers. Developers are overall confident about their own skills compared to their peers, with only 18% agreeing or strongly agreeing that they are not as good at programming as their colleagues.

No No19.2% 43.6%

Multiple times per day

Weekly or a few times per month

62.4%

6.2%

A few times per week

Less than once per month

18.5%

2.7%

Once a day

Never

9.2%

1.1%

I feel a sense of kinship or connection to other developers

I think of myself as competing with my peers

I’m not as good at programming as most of my peers

80.8% 56.4%Yes Yes

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Years of Experience and Feelings of BelongingDevelopers’ feelings on how much they belong and how they stack up to their peers change with how much experience they have. More experienced developers feel more connected, more confident, and less competitive. Notice that feeling less skilled drops quickly with experience, while feeling less competitive drops more gradually and continues to drop into the second decade of coding experience.

Years of coding experience

% w

ho a

gree

or s

tron

gly

agre

e

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

0 10 20 30

I feel a sense of kinship or connection to other developers

I think of myself as competing with my peers

I am not as good at programming as most of my peers

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Programming LanguagesFor the sixth year in a row, JavaScript is the most commonly used programming language. Python continues to rise in the ranks, surpassing C# this year, much like it surpassed PHP last year. As a result, Python has a solid claim to being the fastest-growing major programming language.

We see close alignment in the technology choices of professional developers and the developer population overall.

For the third year in a row, Rust is the most loved programming language among our respondents, followed close behind by Kotlin, a language we asked about for the first time on our survey this year. This means that proportionally, more developers want to continue working with these than other languages.

Most Popular Programming Scripting and Markup Languages

Most Loved Programming Scripting and Markup Languages

TECHNOLOGYJavaScript

HTML

CSS

SQL

Java

Bash/Shell

Python

69.8%

68.5%

65.1%

57%

45.3%

39.8%

38.8%

Rust

Kotlin

Python

TypeScript

Go

Swift

JavaScript

78.9%

75.1%

68%

67%

65.6%

65.1%

61.9%

C#

F#

Clojure

Bash/Shell

Scala

SQL

HTML

60.4%

59.6%

59.6%

59.1%

58.5%

57.5%

55.7%

CSS

Haskell

Julia

Java

R

Ruby

Erlang

55.1%

53.6%

52.8%

50.7%

49.4%

47.4%

47.2%

C++

Hack

PHP

Ocaml

46.7%

42.1%

41.6%

41.5%

C#

PHP

C++

C

TypeScript

Ruby

Swift

34.4%

30.7%

25.4%

23%

17.4%

10.1%

8.1%

Assembly

Go

Objective-C

VB.NET

R

Matlab

VBA

7.4%

7.1%

7%

6.7%

6.1%

5.8%

4.9%

Kotlin

Scala

Groovy

Perl

4.5%

4.4%

4.3%

4.2%

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TECHNOLOGY

Most Dreaded Programming Scripting and Markup LanguagesAlso for the third year in a row, Visual Basic 6 ranks as the most dreaded programming language. “Most dreaded” means that a high percentage of developers who are currently using the technology express no interest in continuing to do so.

Python is the most wanted language for the second year in a row, meaning that it is the language that developers who do not yet use it most often say they want to learn.

Julia

Haskell

CSS

HTML

47.2%

46.4%

44.9%

44.3%

Visual Basic 6

Cobol

CoffeeScript

VB.NET

VBA

Matlab

Assembly

89.9%

84.1%

82.7%

80.9%

80%

77.4%

71.4%

Perl

Objective-C

Lua

Groovy

Delphi/Object Pascal

C

Ocaml

71.3%

70.3%

68.2%

66.4%

65.1%

62.6%

58.5%

PHP

Hack

C++

Erlang

Ruby

R

Java

58.4%

57.9%

53.3%

52.8%

52.6%

50.6%

49.3%

Most Wanted Programming Scripting and Markup Languages

Python

JavaScript

Go

Kotlin

TypeScript

Java

C++

25.1%

19%

16.2%

12.4%

11.9%

10.5%

10.2%

Rust

C#

Swift

HTML

CSS

SQL

R

8.3%

8%

7.7%

7.6%

7.6%

6.8%

6.3%

C

Ruby

Scala

Haskell

Bash/Shell

PHP

F#

5.9%

5.7%

5.6%

5.3%

4.9%

4.1%

4%

Assembly

Erlang

Clojure

Objective-C

3.4%

3%

2.7%

2.6%

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TECHNOLOGY

Database EnvironmentsMuch like last year, MySQL and SQL Server are the most commonly used databases.

For the second year in a row, Redis is the most loved database, meaning that proportionally more developers wanted to continue working with it than any other database. IBM’s Db2 offering ranks as the most dreaded database, and for the second year in a row, MongoDB is the most wanted database.

Most Popular Databases

MySQL

SQL Server

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

SQLite

Redis

Elasticsearch

58.7%

41.2%

32.9%

25.9%

19.7%

18%

14.1%

MariaDB

Oracle

Microsoft Azure (Tables, CosmosDB, SQL, etc)

Google Cloud Storage

Memcached

Amazon DynamoDB

Amazon RDS/Aurora

13.4%

11.1%

7.9%

5.5%

5.5%

5.2%

5.1%

Cassandra

IBM Db2

Neo4j

Amazon Redshift

Apache Hive

Google BigQuery

Apache HBase

3.7%

2.5%

2.4%

2.2%

2.2%

2.1%

1.7%

Most Loved Databases

Redis

PostgreSQL

Elasticsearch

Amazon RDS/Aurora

Microsoft Azure (Tables, CosmosDB, SQL, etc)

Google Cloud Storage

MongoDB

64.5%

62%

59.9%

58.8%

56.7%

56.5%

55.1%

MariaDB

Google BigQuery

SQL Server

Amazon DynamoDB

Neo4j

MySQL

SQLite

53.3%

52.4%

51.6%

50.9%

49.7%

48.7%

48.1%

Cassandra

Apache Hive

Amazon Redshift

Apache HBase

Memcached

Oracle

IBM Db2

46.4%

46.2%

44.8%

43.6%

42.2%

36.9%

21.8%

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TECHNOLOGY

Most Dreaded Databases

IBM Db2

Oracle

Memcached

Apache HBase

Amazon Redshift

Apache Hive

Cassandra

78.2%

63.1%

57.8%

56.4%

55.2%

53.8%

53.6%

SQLite

MySQL

Neo4j

Amazon DynamoDB

SQL Server

Google BigQuery

MariaDB

51.9%

51.3%

50.3%

49.1%

48.4%

47.6%

46.7%

MongoDB

Google Cloud Storage

Microsoft Azure (Tables, CosmosDB, SQL, etc)

Amazon RDS/Aurora

Elasticsearch

PostgreSQL

Redis

44.9%

43.5%

43.3%

41.2%

40.1%

38%

35.5%

Most Wanted Databases

MongoDB

Elasticsearch

PostgreSQL

Redis

MySQL

Microsoft Azure (Tables, CosmosDB, SQL, etc)

Google Cloud Storage

18.6%

12.2%

11.4%

9.7%

7.5%

7.3%

7.3%

Cassandra

Amazon DynamoDB

Google BigQuery

SQL Server

Neo4j

Amazon RDS/Aurora

MariaDB

6.1%

5.7%

5.6%

4.2%

3.9%

3.5%

3.4%

Amazon Redshift

SQLite

Memcached

Apache Hive

Apache HBase

Oracle

IBM Db2

3.3%

3.3%

2.7%

2.6%

2.4%

2.3%

0.7%

Redismost loveddatabase

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TECHNOLOGY

PlatformsLinux and Windows Desktop or Server are the most common choices that our respondents say they have done development work for this year.

Linux is once again the most loved platform for development, with serverless infrastructure also loved this year. SharePoint is the most dreaded development platform for the second year in a row, and many developers say they want to start developing for the Android platform and the Raspberry Pi.

Most Popular Platforms

Most Loved Platforms

Linux

Windows Desktop or Server

Android

AWS

Mac OS

Raspberry Pi

WordPress

48.3%

35.4%

29%

24.1%

17.9%

15.9%

15.9%

Linux

Serverless

AWS

Raspberry Pi

ESP8266

iOS

Apple Watch or Apple TV

76.5%

75.2%

68.6%

67.7%

67.4%

64.6%

64%

Mac OS

Firebase

Android

Google Cloud Platform/App Engine

Gaming console

Windows Desktop or Server

Azure

63.9%

63.8%

63.8%

62.5%

61.3%

61.2%

61%

Arduino

Google Home

Amazon Echo

Heroku

IBM Cloud or Watson

Predix

WordPress

58.1%

57.6%

53.2%

52.2%

43.7%

39.1%

36.8%

Windows Phone

Mainframe

Salesforce

Drupal

31.2%

31.1%

30.3%

29.6%

iOS

Firebase

Azure

Arduino

Heroku

Google Cloud Platform/App Engine

Serverless

15.5%

14.5%

11%

10.6%

10.5%

8%

4.5%

Drupal

Amazon Echo

Windows Phone

SharePoint

ESP8266

Salesforce

Apple Watch or Apple TV

3%

2.9%

2.7%

2.7%

2.2%

2.2%

1.9%

IBM Cloud or Watson

Google Home

Gaming console

Mainframe

1.4%

1.4%

1.3%

0.8%

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TECHNOLOGY

Most Dreaded Platforms

ESP8266

Raspberry Pi

AWS

Serverless

32.6%

32.3%

31.4%

24.8%

SharePoint

Drupal

Salesforce

Mainframe

Windows Phone

WordPress

Predix

71.8%

70.4%

69.7%

68.9%

68.8%

63.2%

60.9%

IBM Cloud or Watson

Heroku

Amazon Echo

Google Home

Arduino

Azure

Windows Desktop or Server

56.3%

47.8%

46.8%

42.4%

41.9%

39%

38.8%

Gaming console

Google Cloud Platform/App Engine

Android

Firebase

Mac OS

Apple Watch or Apple TV

iOS

38.7%

37.5%

36.2%

36.2%

36.1%

36%

35.4%

Most Wanted Platforms

Android

Raspberry Pi

AWS

Linux

iOS

Firebase

Google Cloud Platform/App Engine

16%

13.1%

12%

10.9%

9.6%

8.3%

8.2%

Arduino

Mac OS

Azure

Amazon Echo

Serverless

Google Home

Gaming console

7.7%

6.6%

6.4%

6.3%

5.6%

5.1%

4.4%

Apple Watch or Apple TV

Heroku

Windows Desktop or Server

IBM Cloud or Watson

WordPress

Windows Phone

ESP8266

3.3%

3.2%

2.7%

2.3%

2.3%

1.2%

1.1%

Salesforce

Drupal

SharePoint

Mainframe

1.1%

0.9%

0.7%

0.6%

Linuxmost lovedplatform fordevelopment

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TECHNOLOGY

Libraries, Frameworks, & ToolsNode.js and AngularJS continue to be the most commonly used technologies in this category, with React and .NET Core also important to many developers.

TensorFlow, one of the fastest growing technologies on Stack Overflow, is most loved by developers, while Cordova is most dreaded. React is the framework developers say they most want to work with if they do not already.

Most Popular Libraries, Frameworks, & Tools

Node.js

Angular

React

.NET Core

Spring

Django

Cordova

49.6%

36.9%

27.8%

27.2%

17.6%

13%

8.5%

TensorFlow

Xamarin

Spark

Hadoop

Torch/PyTorch

7.8%

7.4%

4.8%

4.7%

1.7%

Most Loved Libraries, Frameworks, & Tools

TensorFlow

React

Torch/PyTorch

Node.js

.NET Core

Spark

Spring

73.5%

69.4%

68%

66.4%

66%

66%

60%

Django

Angular

Hadoop

Xamarin

Cordova

58.3%

54.6%

53.9%

49%

40.4%

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TECHNOLOGY

Most Dreaded Libraries, Frameworks, & Tools

Cordova

Xamarin

Hadoop

Angular

Django

Spring

Spark

59.6%

51%

46.1%

45.4%

41.7%

40%

34%

.NET Core

Node.js

Torch/PyTorch

React

TensorFlow

34%

33.6%

32%

30.6%

26.5%

Most Wanted Libraries, Frameworks, & Tools

React

Node.js

TensorFlow

Angular

.NET Core

Django

Hadoop

21.3%

20.9%

15.5%

14.3%

9.3%

6.7%

6.4%

Xamarin

Spark

Torch/PyTorch

Spring

Cordova

6.1%

4.8%

4.5%

3.7%

2.6%

TensorFlowmost lovedby developers

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TECHNOLOGY

Coda

Komodo

Zend

Light Table

0.6%

0.6%

0.4%

0.2%

Development EnvironmentsVisual Studio Code just edged out Visual Studio as the most popular developer environment across the board, but there are differences in tool choices by developer type and role. Developers who write code for mobile apps are more likely to choose Android Studio and XCode, the most popular choice by DevOps and Sysadmins is Vim, and Data Scientists are more likely to work in IPython/Jupyter, PyCharm, and RStudio.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio

Notepad++

Sublime Text

Vim

IntelliJ

34.9%

34.3%

34.2%

28.9%

25.8%

24.9%

NetBeans

IPython / Jupyter

Emacs

RStudio

RubyMine

TextMate

8.2%

7.4%

4.1%

3.3%

1.6%

1.1%

Android Studio

Eclipse

Atom

PyCharm

XCode

PHPStorm

19.3%

18.9%

18%

12%

10.6%

9%

Operating SystemsWe asked our respondents what operating systems they use for work. About half said they mainly use Windows, and the remainder were about evenly split between MacOS and Linux.

Windows49.9%

MacOS Linux-based BSD/Unix26.7% 23.2% 0.2%

MethodologiesAgile and Scrum are popular methodologies for developers to keep their projects on track.

Agile

Scrum

Kanban

Pair programming

Extreme programming (XP)

85.4%

62.7%

35.2%

28.4%

15.7%

Formal standard such as ISO 9001 or IEEE 12207 (aka “waterfall” methodologies)

Lean

Evidence-based software engineering

Mob programming

PRINCE2

15.1%

9.6%

3.5%

3.3%

1.5%

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TECHNOLOGY

Version ControlGit is the dominant choice for version control for developers today, with almost 90% of developers checking in their code via Git.

Knowledge-Sharing & Communication ToolsAbout half of professional developers use Slack, with Jira coming in as second most used. Slack

51.8%Jira Office / productivity suite

(Microsoft Office, Google Suite, etc.)Other wiki tool (Github, Google

Sites, proprietary software, etc.)

Confluence Google Hangouts/Chat Other chat system (IRC, proprietary software, etc.)

Trello

Facebook HipChat

41.6%39.3% 31.4%

29.8% 21.7%21.5%

17.9%

10% 6.2% 3.3%Stack Overflow Enterprise

Git

Subversion

Team Foundation Version Control

Zip file back-ups

87.2%

16.1%

10.9%

7.9%

Copying and pasting files to network shares

I don’t use version control

Mercurial

7.9%

4.8%

3.6%

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TECHNOLOGY

Correlated TechnologiesTechnologies cluster together into related ecosystems that tend to be used by the same developers. In this chart we use a large central cluster for web development (with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS) connected via SQL to one for Microsoft technologies (with C#, Visual Studio, and .NET Core). Along the bottom we see a constellation connecting Java, Android, and iOS across to Linux, bash/shell, and Python. Other smaller correlated clusters include Scala/Spark, C/C++, and other smaller technologies that include language-specific IDEs.

% of Respondents

Type

DatabaseFrameworkIDELanguagePlatform

Visual Basic 6

SQL ServerXamarin

ESP8266

Arduino

Raspberry Pi

Scala

Spark

HadoopApache HBase

Apache Hive

C#Azure

.NET Core

Visual Studio

Notepad++

Windows Desktop or Server

Apple Watch or Apple TV

Amazon RDS/Aurora

Amazon DynamoDB

Objective-C

Android

Android Studio

Firebase

Kotlin

Java

Eclipse

IntelliJ

Spring

XCode

iOSSwift

Microsoft Azure

Torch/PyTorch

Memcached

Elasticsearch

IPython/Jupyter

Python

Bash/Shell

Linux

Vim

AWS

Mac OS

Django RedisPyCharm

ServerlessPostgreSQL

TensorFlow

MongoDB

MainframeCoffeeScript

Ruby

RubyMine

Assembly

Google BigQueryGoogle Cloud Platform

Google Cloud Storage

Visual Studio Code

TypeScript

AngularNode.js

React

JavaScriptCSS

C++C

R

RStudioDelphi

Cobol

Delphi/Object Pascal

HTML

SQLMySQL

MariaDB

WordPress

PHPStorm

PHP

VBAVB.NET

20%

40%

60%

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEWhat Developers Think About AIMore and more developers are involved in the increasing role of machine learning and artificial intelligence. When asked about AI, there is not much consensus among developers about what is most dangerous—each answer was chosen roughly equally. The top choice for what is exciting about increasing AI is that jobs can be automated, with over 80% of developers not considering this dangerous.

What’s Dangerous About AI

Algorithms making important decisions

Artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence (“the singularity”)

Evolving definitions of “fairness” in algorithmic versus human decisions

Increasing automation of jobs

28.6%

28%

23.7%

19.8%

What’s Exciting About AI

Increasing automation of jobs

Algorithms making important decisions

Artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence (“the singularity”)

Evolving definitions of “fairness” in algorithmic versus human decisions

40.8%

23.5%

23.3%

12.4%

Responsibilities for Considering Ramifications of AIDevelopers are most likely to think that the creators and technologists behind the machine learning and AI algorithms are the ones who are ultimately most responsible for the societal issues surrounding artificial intelligence. About a quarter of respondents think that a regulatory body should be primarily responsible.

The Future of AIDevelopers are mostly optimistic about the possibilities that artificial intelligence offers our world, with almost three-quarters of respondents saying that they are overall more excited than worried about the AI future.

Who Should Be Responsible for Issues Around AI

The developers or the people creating the AI

A governmental or other regulatory body

Prominent industry leaders

Nobody

47.8%

27.9%

16.6%

7.7%

How Developers Feel About the Future of AII’m excited about the possibilities more than worried about the dangers.

I’m worried about the dangers more than I’m excited about the possibilities.

I don’t care about it, or I haven’t thought about it.

72.8%

19%

8.2%

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Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018

31

STACK OVERFLOWHow developers use and describe the world’s largest programming community.

VisitsDevelopers visit Stack Overflow. A lot. Over half of our respondents say they are at least daily visitors.

ParticipationDevelopers use Stack Overflow for a variety of reasons. Some programmers visit only to find answers to their questions, while others participate in the community by asking, answering, voting for, or commenting on questions. Over 42% of developers participate on Stack Overflow at least once per week.

How to DescribeUsing free text responses, we asked developers how they would describe Stack Overflow. Developers were overwhelmingly positive about Stack Overflow, focusing on the helpful nature of the community.

I have never visited Stack Overflow (before today)

Less than once per month or monthly

A few times per month or weekly

A few times per week

Daily or almost daily

Multiple times per day

0.5%

2%

11.5%

22.4%

32.5%

31.1%

How Often Developers Visit Stack Overflow

How Often Developers Participate in Stack Overflow

I have never participated in Q&A on Stack Overflow

Less than once per month or monthly

A few times per month or weekly

A few times per week

Daily or almost daily

Multiple times per day

17.3%

39.2%

22.6%

11.7%

5.9%

3.2%

How Developers Describe Stack Overflow

helpful

community

developer

people

question

great

good

help

answer

best

knowledge

place

awesome

problem

sometimes

useful

friendly

helping

can

learn

18.7%

12.2%

10.2%

8.7%

7.3%

7%

6.9%

6.7%

5.8%

5.8%

5.2%

4.9%

4.2%

3.7%

3.5%

3.5%

3.2%

3.2%

3.1%

2.8%

Page 32: 2018 GLOBAL DEVELOPER HIRING LANDSCAPE...Global Developer Hiring Landscape 2018 4 Developer Type Over half of our respondents identified as Back-End Developers. Location Developers

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Stack Overflow is the largest, most trusted online developer community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. More than 50 million professional and aspiring programmers visit Stack Overflow each month to help solve coding problems, develop new skills, and find job opportunities.

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