What you need to know:
Quick, shareable insights from this year’s findings
In 2019, average salaries for top engineering roles went up by nearly 13% in London, 7% in Toronto, 7% in New York and 6% in the SF Bay Area.
Demand for AR/VR talent is up by 1400%, mirroring blockchain’s 517% demand growth last year.
Demand for frontend and backend engineers grew steadily by 17%, which shows that all companies — not just Silicon Valley tech giants — are evolving into being tech companies.
In large US tech hubs AR/VR engineer salaries range from $135k - $150k.
The majority of software engineers predict we will see the full impact of AR/VR within the next 5 years.
While pay for most Americans has grown between 3 - 3.5%, top engineering roles in San Francisco and New York have seen salaries grow at double that rate: 6% and 7%, respectively.
For love, not money: The #1 reason most software engineers chose their career is “new challenges and continuous learning” beating “earning potential”. Their #1 goal in the next 10 years: continue building cool things.
Nearly 1 in 2 software engineers say machine learning is the most interesting field in software today.
Google’s Go language retains its position as the #1 most desired coding skill for the second year running, garnering an average of 9.2 interview requests for every Go-skilled candidate.
No degree, no problem: More than half (54%) of engineers say if they were a hiring manager they would have no preference between a candidate with or without a computer science degree.
The report in context
Overview
The worldwide process of digital transformation, while something of a buzzword, reflects a critical truth: every company is now a technology company. Whether the company is Bank of America, Alaska Airlines, Sainsbury’s, or Tesla, investment in top software engineering talent isn’t a future ambition, it’s a matter of survival. At Hired, we sit on the frontlines of helping innovative companies build great teams. As part of that mission, we strive to empower hiring companies and job seekers through data.
Our State of Software Engineer Report is a collection of insights designed to bring to life the trends driving digital transformation, and Hired is in a unique position to share these insights because of our unprecedented visibility into the hiring process. Our hope is that publishing this report will continue fueling meaningful career conversations among the developer community and give software engineers the actionable data they need to achieve their professional goals.
CEO Insights, Mehul Patel
It’s critical for hiring managers to focus on assessing a candidate’s skills rather than over indexing on education. While 50% of software engineers have a computer science degree, another 32% either taught themselves to code or learned through a coding bootcamp — and they may very well have the same set of programming skills. That’s why Hired places so much emphasis on relevant skills when matching talent with opportunities.
While salaries for software engineers continue to rise, investing in top-tier talent should remain an executive-level priority for employers. A company’s hiring funnel is just as important as their revenue funnel. Offering competitive pay and deeply understanding what top talent wants are both critical for maintaining and growing that hiring funnel.
Macro Trends
“According to Robert Half, 67% of IT managers plan to expand their teams in areas such as security, cloud computing and business intelligence, but 89% reported challenges in recruiting that talent. Those challenges in hiring are even greater for roles related to machine learning, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.”
“The increasing demand of tech talent is driven by companies in two sectors: telecom/information services and retail.”
“There were 23 million software developers in 2018. This number is expected to reach 26.4 million by the end of 2019 and 27.7 million by 2023.”
“Companies [in August 2019] added 104,000 information-technology workers, boosting the number of US information-technology jobs to more than 5.6 million.”
Unprecedented Tech Hiring Visibility:
Hired’s marketplace is uniquely positioned to share career insights for both companies and tech talent since we have unprecedented visibility into the entire hiring process - from the candidate’s initial job search expectations to the first interview and final offer. With over 10,000 companies, 420,000 interview requests, and 98,000 job seekers, our scale gives us a unique window into everything from in-demand candidate skills, to company needs, all the way through to salary negotiations between real candidates and companies. You won’t find this data anywhere else.
The hottest jobs in software engineering
Over the last year, hundreds of thousands of interview requests came through Hired’s marketplace, giving us (and now you) a rare look at what jobs and skills are most in-demand at thousands of the world’s most innovative companies.
Each year, there appears to be a trendy new role that explodes onto the hiring scene. Last year, that unexpected “dark horse” was the blockchain engineer, while 2020 seems to be the year of AR/VR (with demand increasing by +1400%). It’s worth noting that demand growth for blockchain engineers slowed to 9% this year, normalizing from its explosive 517% growth last year.
We see the growth in AR/VR demand as a direct reflection of the technology itself coming of age for a broader swathe of business outside of gaming. From beauty companies like Sephora to furniture retailers like Wayfair, many different types of companies are embracing the capabilities of these world building and enhancing technologies.
Hiring demand for gaming engineers grew by 146% in 2019.
Security engineers remain in high demand for 2019 with 49% growth. However, this is significantly slower than the 132% growth rate in 2018.
While emerging tech trends continue to make headlines, demand for frontend and backend engineers grew steadily by 17% in 2019, which shows that all companies — not just Silicon Valley tech giants — are evolving into being a tech company
Demand Growth for Engineering Roles
Role did not register near the top of the list last year, so a YoY comparison will be available in 2021.
Hired Talent Insights: The Year of AR/VR
of software engineers predict we will see the full impact of AR/VR within the next 5 years.
of software engineers rank AR/VR as one of the top 3 technologies they’d like to learn in 2020.
Companies are keeping pay competitive
The salary data represented below is not self-reported. It’s collected from interview requests from real companies on our platform that provide salary information upfront, not from job postings, which are subject to constant change during negotiation. Analyzing Hired’s marketplace of tens of thousands of job offers is the most accurate representation of the salaries offered to top talent in various roles and markets across the globe. No matter which side of the interview process you’re on, understanding significant salary trends is key to landing your dream candidate or job.
In every major market, machine learning engineers rank within the top 10 highest paid roles, with San Francisco leading the pay pack at $162,000/yr (also a 6% increase over last year’s average machine learning salary in SF).
Other highly paid constants across markets are the roles of NLP (Natural Language Processing) engineer, security engineer, and gaming engineer, all of which cracked the top 10 highest paid roles in at least two Hired markets.
In 2019, average salaries for top engineering roles went up by nearly 13% in London, 7% in Toronto, 7% in New York, and 6% in the SF Bay Area.
Search engineers should consider moving north, as salaries for that role in Toronto increased by nearly 30% in 2019 - going from $87k CAD/year to $113k CAD/year.
If you work in AR/VR, you may want to move to San Francisco, where they pay $150k/year on average.
Salary Trends for Top Software Engineering Roles
5%6%5%6%5%11%6%5%3%Role did not register near the top of the list last year, so a YoY comparison will be available in 2021.
7%7%5%5%13%1%7%5%9%7%21%1%30%7%5%6%
-2%11%6%15%18%25%17%18%12%7%5%
The hottest coding languages
Core to finding the perfect match between a candidate and company is a clear assessment of skills: where they are most needed and which candidates bring them to the table. Of course, while there are many skills that make a top-tier engineer, their experience with specific coding languages tends to set them apart.
In last year’s State of Software Engineers report, the candidate skill sets that made them the most in-demand on the marketplace were candidates with Google's Go. Those candidates have only become more in demand in the last year. Last year’s report showed engineers experienced with Go received an average of 9 interview requests from companies hiring on our platform - this year, it was 9.2.
All told, the number of interview requests across all languages remained nearly constant year-over-year, with only minor fluctuations in average requests, and zero change in how each language ranked against others. This could suggest that supply for these skills has not yet caught up with demand and we may see this data shift as more engineers learn Go over time.
Python, JavaScript, and Java are engineers’ favorite coding languages, largely because of their useful and well-maintained libraries and packages.
Demand for Go skills is high, with Go-skilled engineers earning an average of 9+ interviews over 2-6 weeks
Ruby, PHP and Objective C are ranked the least favorite (and least fun) languages for software engineers.
Most In-Demand Coding Languages Across the Globe
Most In-Demand Coding Languages by Market
Hover over a city for details
SF Bay Area
New York
Toronto
London
Most Commonly Used Programming Languages by Software Engineers
Experience matters
While Go may be the king across the Hired marketplace, when we break down the most in-demand languages by an engineer’s years of experience, a slightly different picture emerges. For those with 4 - 6 years experience, Go skills still win the day (averaging 11.2 interview requests - well above the rest of the marketplace), but those with 6 - 10 years of experience are better off if they are skilled in Ruby (averaging 11 interview requests), and those with 10+ years are best served by Scala and Go (both averaging 9.1 interview requests).
Software engineers with 10+ years of experience get 20% fewer interview requests than those with 4 - 10.
Top Programming Languages by Years of Experience
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Factors that influence an engineer's language preference
The ecosystem (e.g. libraries and packages)
Resources available for learning and development
It is fun to program in
I know it well
Community support (tone of the community, open to newcomers)
Large companies use it
It was the first language I learned
It is not fun to program in
70%
It’s complex and overwhelming
46%
Bad experience working with it
41%
Not many companies use it
24%
Lack of community support
15%
Lack of learning and development resources
15%
For the love of coding
There’s an overarching theme we’ve noticed throughout our survey results — software engineers genuinely love what they do. More than half (53%) of software engineers we surveyed said their primary motivation for learning a new programming language or framework is simply because they enjoy it. And a whopping 85% of respondents said they are glad they pursued a career in software engineering.
Thinking of a career change? Consider software engineering - 85% of software engineers are glad they pursued this career path.
34% of software engineers contribute to open source software because it’s fun.
Global warming, lack of economic opportunity and lack of access to education are the top 3 problems software engineers want to solve through coding.
Here are more of our favorite stats that demonstrate the joy of coding:
of software engineers’ primary motivation for contributing to open source software is that it’s fun
of survey respondents cited ‘new challenges and continuous learning’ as one of the top three things that attracted them to a career in software engineering
of survey respondents cited the ‘opportunity to express myself creatively’ as one of the top three things that attracted them to a career in software engineering
Software engineers want to use their coding skills to solve serious global problems:
said global warming is the global problem they are most passionate about solving
said lack of economic opportunity and unemployment is the global problem they are most passionate about solving
said lack of access to education is the global problem they are most passionate about solving
Building a better interview
Before developers land their dream jobs — or even get an initial offer — they have to work their way through a variety of coding exams, whiteboarding sessions, and behavioral interviews. So what do developers actually think about these interview methods? Only 31% think coding exams effectively test their aptitude, while two-thirds say most coding exams are irrelevant to the daily job of an engineer.
Of all the tests they’ll have to take to get the job, developers aren’t up at night worrying about behavioral interviews — just 12% say it’s the most stressful part of the process. Coding exams and whiteboarding sessions are a different story. 42% of developers cite coding exams as the most stressful part of the interview process, and 38% say the same about whiteboarding sessions.
66% of software engineers think coding exams are irrelevant to the daily job of an engineer.
Software engineers want to learn about machine learning more than any other type of tech.
Survey shows one in five software engineers taught themselves to code.
Which part of the interview process is the most stressful?
Coding exams
Whiteboarding sessions
Behavioral interviews
What do you think about coding exams?
They’re irrelevant to the daily job
They are an effective way to test a candidate’s aptitude
Which part of the interview process is the most stressful?
Coding exams
Whiteboarding sessions
Behavioral interviews
What do you think about coding exams?
They’re irrelevant to the daily job
They are an effective way to test a candidate’s aptitude
Lifelong Learning: Continual Developer Education
Learning to code is an impressive achievement, but it doesn’t always happen in a university setting. While half of the software engineers we surveyed have a computer science degree, 22% told us they are self-taught and another 10% learned to code through a bootcamp program.
How did you learn to program?
Respondents could select more than 1 option
I have a computer science degree
I have a relevant college degree
I participated in a bootcamp program
I’m self-taught
How did you learn to program?
Respondents could select more than 1 option
I have a computer science degree
I have a relevant college degree
I participated in a bootcamp program
I’m self-taught
The Beauty of Bootcamps
These days, every company is a tech company, which means the demand for software engineers isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. Coding bootcamps are helping meet this demand — 10% of survey respondents participated in a bootcamp and 72% of those said it helped prepare them for an engineering job.
Developer Interest vs. Employer Demand
Our survey also reveals that developer interests and employer demand don’t always align. For example, AR/VR engineering is the skill most rapidly growing in demand on the Hired marketplace, but only a quarter of survey respondents ranked AR/VR as the number one or two type of tech they want to learn about. For machine learning, interest and demand line up: 68% of respondents ranked machine learning as the number one or two type of tech they want to learn about.
What technology or skill are you most interested in learning more about?
For the second year in a row, these are the top 10-year career goals for software engineers:
To continue building cool things
To become a technology leader (SVP, CTO)
To be a product leader
To start their own company
Dispelling myths about software engineers
If you’ve ever watched an episode of HBO’s Silicon Valley, you know there are certain perceptions people have about software engineers. Hollywood represents software engineers as night owls and introverts, but engineers report otherwise. In fact, two-thirds of survey respondents said they prefer to get up early and finish work early, and nearly half (47%) would choose to come into an office everyday rather than work 100% remotely.
Majority of software engineers are early birds and nearly half would rather work in an office every day than be 100% remote.
40% of software engineers only need one cup of coffee to fuel their workday, and only 2% drink Soylent.
Electronic music is the top genre of choice for software engineers at work.
If forced to choose, would you rather get up early and finish work early or sleep in and work late?
Get up early and finish work early
Sleep in and work late
If forced to choose, would you rather work remotely 100% of the time or come into an office every day?
Work remotely 100% of the time
Come into an office every day
The Sounds of Productivity & Fuel for Workflow
Here are the top three kinds of music software engineers like to listen to while working:
When it comes to energizing for the workday, coffee reigns supreme. Software engineers’ top picks for fueling their work are:
Black Coffee
Tea
Lattes
Cappuccino
Espresso
Soylent
And software engineers aren’t as highly-caffeinated as you might think. When asked to describe their average daily caffeine consumption, survey respondents reported the following:
1 Cup
2 Cup
3 Cup
4 Cups
5+ Cups
When it comes to energizing for the workday, coffee reigns supreme. Software engineers’ top picks for fueling their work are:
Black Coffee
Tea
Lattes
Cappuccino
Espresso
Soylent
And software engineers aren’t as highly-caffeinated as you might think. When asked to describe their average daily caffeine consumption, survey respondents reported the following:
1 Cup
2 Cup
3 Cup
4 Cups
5+ Cups
Methodology
This report is based on proprietary information gathered and analyzed by Hired’s data science team. For the purpose of this report, we focused on software engineers in 13 cities. The data included reflect more than 400,000 interview requests and job offers from the past year facilitated through our marketplace of more than 10,000 participating companies and 98,000 job seekers. Age data was collected through an optional demographics survey given to Hired candidates that is used only for aggregated research purposes and not shared with Hired clients.
In addition to our proprietary data, we collected survey responses from more than 1,600 software engineers on the Hired platform to inform our understanding of developers’ working preferences.
About Hired
Hired (Hired.com) is a marketplace that matches tech talent with the world’s most innovative companies. Hired combines intelligent job matching with unbiased career counseling to help people find a job they love. Through Hired, job candidates and companies have transparency into salary offers, competing opportunities and job details. This level of insight is unmatched, making the recruiting process quicker and more efficient than ever before.
Hired was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in the United States, Canada, France, and the UK.
For more information, news, and tips for job candidates and employers, visit Hired’s blog
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