Declan Chidlow
It is easy for an industry to be defined by the established, but there is no future without new blood.
Entering the industry is a tough gig. Another application. Another day. 1000+ applicants. AI video “interviews”. It is evident that job boards are little more than a numbers game, and that network is what matters. The number of applications required to land a job is highest for people with lesser experience, and I can only wonder if we'll see this tick up further as companies continue in their hamfisted attempts to replace juniors with AI.
They say good health is wasted on the youth. Speaking of juniors, it certainly seems like it, with the under-20-years-old demographic being the only not to cite “good health” as their main source of happiness. And developers seem to be a conscientious bunch, with our worldviews indicating we do care about global issues.
Turning an eye to the metadata of responses, it seems developers are far more diverse in our browser usage than the general populace. Chrome comes in at 36%, Firefox at 14%, Safari at 13%, and Edge at 2%. In contrast, Statcounter places worldwide usage at 68% for Chrome, 16% for Safari, 5% for Edge, and 2% for Firefox. A similar diversity can be seen in the assortment of desktop operating systems used, with macOS and Linux eating into Windows' usual market share.
In future surveys I would like to see responses from a more diverse pool and hear the experiences of lesser-represented groups, not least so I can learn from them. I'd also so love to see more geographical variation in responses, as the U.S. tends to dominate development discussion.
And from an industry standpoint, I dream of organisations looking at these surveys like a to-do list and putting focus on the outlined flaws.