Hey there, humans who code, how are you all doing?
We’ve been asking this question (with far more words and details) for fifteen years now, and every year, how and what software builders do changes. The first survey back in 2011 asked about mobile platforms and company size. Since then, the activities that could include writing code have grown included cloud platforms, data science, and remote work.
The concern du jour now is, of course, AI—in particular, agents. If you’ve missed out on this conversation, I’d like to compliment you on your lovely island. For the rest of you, we’re wondering where you sit in using them: are you AI-pilled, curious or wary, or sharpening pitchforks as a neo-Luddite?
Last year, we found that more developers are using AI, but less of them trust it. Our recent survey on agents found that agent usage has doubled since then, but the concerns they have about AI code have grown as well. This year, we want to know where AI fits in the software development lifecycle, if it’s affected your working life, and if we’re moving from YOLO to ROI.
Not everything has changed in our survey this year. We’ve still got many of the old classics about your working life and the tech you use (or wish you used). Software development is still building software with tools. The catch is that the tools are changing all the time now.
As always, we will be using Qualtrics as our survey platform. If you use a third-party ad-blocking plugin, you may see error messages during the survey period. We ask that you specifically unblock Qualtrics in your plugins or pause the plugin while you take the survey.
Unfortunately, Qualtrics blocks certain countries from accessing their site and data, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea region of Ukraine (including Sevastopol). We acknowledge that some users in China may have issues due to restrictions imposed by local internet service providers.
We know that this is a long survey and understand that everyone’s time is valuable. The data this survey gathers is for every developer, so we hope every developer participates. Organizations make real decisions based on these results, so we encourage you to add your voice to the survey.
After you take the survey, you can help us take the industry’s temperature by sharing this survey far and wide on whatever platform people are on now. Or go old-school: make some wheatpaste and put it up on a telephone pole. The Stack Overflow Developer Survey Has A Posse.