Categories
Languages

Infographic: Top programming language communities

Which programming languages the developer nation uses the most? Our data reveal which programming language communities are rising faster than others, which are dropping down the rankings, and which are the new additions to the club! Take a look at our infographic containing key findings from our Developer Economics Q4 2019 survey. 

First of all, let’s all hail for our two years in a row queen, ? JavaScript. The JavaScript community counts more than 12 million users worldwide with an increase of 33% over the last two years.

Among the top programming languages, Python and Kotlin have climbed up faster than any other. With a slow and steady rise Python finally managed to edge out Java, counting 8.4 million users and ranking as the second most used language. When it comes to Machine Learning, Python is the first choice of the developer community, chosen from more than 70% of developers involved in ML. Meanwhile, Kotlin has shown significant growth, it nearly doubled in size in the past two years, finding its way into mobile and AR/VR programming.

After almost 10 years of its launch date and a head to head race with Ruby, Go (or Golang) managed to enter the club of the top 10 most used languages, counting 1.4 million users. Another up and coming language making its way mostly through the AR/VR field is Rust exceeding half of million users.

Let’s not forget that developers are dropping languages all the time. The practice of programming is not static. Even though Swift and Objective-C have been used significantly by the Apple community it seems that the developers are slowly abandoning them. On a similar trend, Ruby and Lua seem to have the biggest decrease (30% & 40%).

Check out our infographic which highlights the top trending programming language communities:

programming language communities

The estimates we present here look at active software developers using each programming language, across the globe and across all kinds of programmers.

Looking for a more thorough report on programming language communities? Check out our free State of the Developer Nation Q4 2019 report examining also different topics such as Contribution to Open-Source Software, DevOps Participants and Adoption, Machine Learning, Augmented & Virtual reality and Emerging technologies.

Also, here you can view the latest global average data trends on major development areas.

Categories
Tips

5 Challenges for a Freelance Developer

Thinking about becoming a Freelance Developer? Freelancing can provide overall freedom for you to decide your working hours and salary. Let’s go over some common challenges, pros, cons and trade-offs you may encounter choosing this career path. Hopefully, my experience will help you make an informed decision.

Challenge #1: Steady Income

A strong point in favour of a regular job is a steady income. As a freelance developer, you have to face reality. While there is no real cap to how much you can make, there will be peaks and troughs in your monthly income. 

High and low seasons won’t necessarily follow each other in fixed intervals. In other words, be prepared for long periods of low income especially during your first couple of years.

Pro Tips

Aside from the services you may provide, do your best to generate passive residual income. Maybe consider an app that sells revenue, unobtrusive ads on your website or even a channel on a streaming website. There are many options to choose from nowadays.

Save as much as you can when you are in the high season! Conduct yourself in a frugal manner and eventually, you’ll figure out how much you can add in your expenses without dipping into your savings. You can always use an app to help you manage your finances!

If you still live with your parents, do not rush to move out. Save as much as you can (and make sure to help your parents with the bills). When your savings and your base income are healthy enough, then plan accordingly to find your own space. As a freelance developer, you’ll have steady expenses but not a steady income. Getting involved in the finances of your home will give you firsthand knowledge of how things work. Even if you are fortunate enough and there is no need for you to assist in the household expenses, still offer to handle some of the bills, as this will be part of your learning process.

Challenge #2: Time Management

It’s in the name, Free-lancing! You are your own boss and you have total control over your time. This is a huge pitfall when it comes to freelancing. Indeed you can start your workday after 10 am but watch out. You may not be as productive as you’re hoping to be. Unexpected things come up. Your computer may break, your internet service may stop working and a number of other things could go wrong.

As developers, we pretty much get paid to figure things out and make them simpler and more accessible to everyone else. There are times when no matter how much planning you put into it, the beautifully crafted algorithm will not work and it doesn’t have to be a syntax error. It might be something far more insidious than that. For instance, back in 2006, I was working on an HTML project and wanted to track the checkboxes that were not checked by the user once a form was sent. It took me days to realize that unchecked checkboxes are simply not posted when the form is submitted. As simple it may sound, this was one of those things that you learn from a painful and time-consuming experience.

Pro Tips

Discipline is key for proper time management. Learn how to say “NO” when you have to. You love solving problems and helping people, I get that. However, don’t forget that your freelancing career is only as serious as you take it and your clients can sense that from a mile away. 

Set a working schedule for yourself and stick to it. It might not be easy but it will be totally worth it. If you have a strong reason to miss work, at least make sure you have some wiggle room to make up for that time. 

One tip to always keep in mind: Watch out for the holiday season. If you choose so, holidays may not limit your capacity to work but will probably limit your clients’ availability to answer your phone calls or emails, should you need anything from them.

*** Time Management is closely connected to productivity but we’ll cover that further in challenge #4

Challenge #3: Deliverables

Developers are responsible for solving problems. Many times very simple problems but others very complex ones. Your capacity to deliver such solutions will determine how successful you may be. Clients will do their best to communicate their needs to you. More often than not they will fail at getting their point across. Pay attention to every detail,- the context of the problem, the scope of the problem- and try to connect the dots between what they say, what they mean and what you understand.

Clients will do their best to communicate their needs to you. More often than not they will fail at getting their point across. Pay attention to every detail,- the context of the problem, the scope of the problem- and try to connect the dots between what they say, what they mean and what you understand.

Pro Tips

Be honest with your clients. If you can’t deliver a solution, let them know. You are not required to know everything. Mutual trust is something built over time and if you feel that -while you are not an expert in a subject- you may conquer the learning curve to deliver the solution, communicate it to your clients.

Communication is key. If a client hasn’t heard from you in weeks they may think that you have abandoned them. You do not need to email or contact them every day, but often enough to keep them up to date with the ongoing process of the contracted work.

Challenge #4: Being Productive as a Freelance Developer

This happens to be one of the toughest things to keep up with as a Freelance Developer.  It depends a lot on overcoming the previously mentioned challenges. Many times your productivity will peak when you need it the least (low season for example) and fail you when you need it the most.

In reality, this is a challenge for everyone, even people with steady full-time jobs. It puts extra weight and stress on a Freelance Developer because you’ll need to handle everything on your own, even more so at the beginning. You need to be your own boss, accountant, assistant, supervisor, public relations expert, customer support, and so many more. Say NO to yourself when you want to say YES, can be soul tempering as much as it can be disappointing, but it is critical.

Pro Tips

The road to a productive day is an exploratory journey. Know yourself, balance how much you demand and how much you reward yourself, do your best to be the boss you wish you had but also the employee you wish to have. Don’t forget to exercise, eat well, sleep and keep an eye on your health as your body and mind are the most important tools for you to provide your services. 

We tend to use our computers for everything we do: work, watch series and movies, play or stream games, catch up with friends and family, read and anything else possible., etc. I did it for a long time until I got my hands on an old console and noticed how much more productive I got. Separate these things. When your computer is your go-to for everything, you’ll want to play when it’s time to work and vice-versa. There’s nothing wrong with playing video games in an old console, reading an old book or switching to an old e-reader. Don’t let the trends make you waste money and time you don’t have. Every cent and every minute counts.

Challenge #5: Keeping up with the Industry

A new Javascript framework is born every day. Keeping up has to do with learning new things as it has to do with discerning which things are worth learning. Depending on your choice of stack or target for software development this can be very complicated and time-consuming.

Desktop, Web or Mobile, each have their own set of programming languages, database choices, architectures, distribution systems, update cycles and so much more.

Pro Tips

Choose a single target first and mature in it. Try to be a shark, a horse or an eagle, never a duck, yes the duck can fly, swim and run but never as good as the ones mentioned above. Master one domain before adding a second one. Trends can be very misleading, so be careful. Just because everyone loves or hates the “new” thing, that doesn’t mean you should do too. 

Be critical, read, compare, test, research and make informed decisions – at the end of this article, you’ll find some indicative useful links of sites and tools for that.  You’ll find an outstanding feeling of realization and meaning when you take your algorithms and carefully improve them, remember there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes. In reality, this is a core part of a healthy learning process. However small the step forward it may seem, it’s still a step forward. Code bases and apps are improved in tiny percentages in different areas which add up to a much larger percentage of improvement. 7% Faster on the client-side, 12% faster on the server-side, 16% faster and better-indexed queries switching png icons for SVG’s, removing unused assets and before you know it, your website, web-based or mobile app can be much faster and deliver a much better overall experience.

Conclusions from the Life of a Freelance Developer

As a freelance developer your path can be very rewarding and fulfilling as long as you always do your best. Even if getting the job done might not be enough sometimes, you will still have the certainty that you gave it your 100%. This will soon add up to your advantage.

The beautiful process of learning a new skill and putting it into practice, giving life to an idea, watching it unfold is pure science. This will provide you with a real and palpable sense of achievement and purpose. You start with a simple “hello world” in your first programming language and as you progress it gets more difficult but more interesting as well. Trial and error, you learn, you grow, you overcome or fail. Do it every day, code a little and become more competent.

The dynamics between the known, the unknown and the threshold you cross to narrow that gap is what’s so engaging about the freelance developer lifestyle. Conquer yourself as you conquer new skills.

Useful sites for reading and researching:

Useful sites and tools for testing & benchmarking:

Short Bio: Darwin Santos is a Web Developer from the Dominican Republic and has been a member of the Developer Economics Community since 2017. He specializes in web-based ERP/CRM hybrids and health care systems. He has been working with web technologies since the early 2000s. Several of his deployments have been running for years and are constantly improved and updated. He is also very experienced in database design, data normalization and data migration, with several successful migrations of 20+ years worth of data under his belt. He prefers functional and procedural programming over OOP.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darwin-santos-3a5b4066/

Categories
Community

Developer Psychographics: Curious & Creative Problem-Solvers

Did you know that more developers are team players than loners? If you are like us, you probably love these kinds of facts. You can find more of these in our State of Developer Nation Report (SoN). This edition includes a chapter on Developer Psychographics.

The SoN report comes as a result of our Developer Economics surveys. These are answered annually by tens of thousands of developers, from all over the world. Therefore, these are some of the most reliable reports globally when it comes to developer trends.

The developer community is one of the most developing (see what I did there?) communities in the world. Changes are constant and sometimes, unpredictable. That is why our surveys are as inclusive and all-around as they can be, so that we don’t miss a single thing and we are always up to date.

Developer Psychographics: How do developers describe themselves?

This differs depending on their technology sector, their age and more. For instance, most developers see themselves as Logical persons. However, those working on game development see themselves mainly as Gamers (obviously).

developers

Younger developers mainly see themselves as Gamers. On the other hand, those over 35 years old are more likely to self identify as Readers. In addition, “Gamers” are the least popular term amongst developers aged 45-54 years old.

developers

During the Developer Economics Q2 2019 Survey, we offered respondents over 20 words to create a word sketch that would best describe themselves. Participants could use up to five words and also provide their own descriptions in a text field. We received over 300 responses which ranged from “analytical” to “zoned out”.

It would seem that we are amongst some Curious, Enthusiastic, Friendly, Geeks, and the occasional Innovative, Lazy Leaders Developers.

A few developers pondered if we were asking these questions in an effort to set up a dating site (we are not!). Speaking of love,  however, we found a few developers who love dancing, love the future, love puzzles and music.

Finally, we discovered that a lizard person had answered the survey.

This will surely help our research in years to come!

developers

If you enjoyed this post, you can read the first part of our Developer Psychographics here: How developers see themselves . We also created a webinar on this topic, which is now available on YouTube. Check it out: Developer Personas and Psychographics.

The full State of the Developer Nation report, 17th Edition, with more interesting facts like these ones, is available here.

Join our community for more

Our next report will be out soon, including all the latest trends of the developer world. Why not sign up in our community and receive it right in your inbox?

Our Developer Economics newsletters are fortnightly, include useful developer resources and news, always start with dev humor and are 100% spam free.

Till our next survey! 

Categories
Community

Congratulations to all Prize Winners: Developer Economics Q4 2019 prize draw results

We want to send a big thank you to everyone who participated in our survey and helped contribute to the developer ecosystem! It’s time to announce the full list of our prize winners for the Developer Economics survey Q4 2019 prize draws!

Huge congratulations to all the winners! ?

Exclusive Community Prize Draw for members with 801+ points – Microsoft Surface Pro 6 and iPad Pro

Winner Country Prize
Manish.G Germany Microsoft Surface Pro 6
a********@l***.c** India iPad Pro

Exclusive Community Prize Draw for members with 801+ points – Prizes: Vouchers, branded stickers, water bottles, surprise swag, and socks

Winner Country Prize
Alex L. Israel $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
n***.b*****@g****.c** Finland $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
b********.o*****@g****.c** Mexico $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
Mihály B. Hungary $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
Sharmaine L. Philippines $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
s*******@y****.c** Canada Branded stickers and water bottle
Javier P. Venezuela Branded stickers and water bottle
Shadi B. Egypt Branded stickers and water bottle
t*******.h******@g**.d* Germany Branded stickers and water bottle
r*******@g****.c** Indonesia Branded stickers and water bottle
n****.m*******@g****.c** Italy Surprise branded swag
a***.e.s*******@g****.c** Sweden Surprise branded swag
n***@y****.c** Romania Surprise branded swag
Amirudin M. Malaysia Surprise branded swag
n*******@i*********.c** Canada Surprise branded swag
j********@g****.c** South Africa Branded stickers and socks
Tobias W. Germany Branded stickers and socks

Exclusive Community Prize Draw for members with 501+ points: Prizes: Vouchers, suprise swag, branded stickers and socks

Winner Country Prize
Rustam S. Russia $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
Mike I. United Kingdom $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
Shafiq J. Canada $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
f****.i******@g****.c** United Kingdom $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
h***************@g****.c** United States $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
Steve A. Ireland $50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
Lawrence M. United States Surprise branded swag
i*******@g****.c** United States Surprise branded swag
r******@g****.c** Spain Branded stickers and socks
Sandi P. Indonesia Branded stickers and socks
Aminu Ibrahim A. Nigeria Branded stickers and socks
Jakub G. Poland Branded stickers and socks
r*******@y****.c** United States Branded stickers and socks

Exclusive Community Prize Draw for members with 301+ points – Prizes: Branded suprise swag, stickers and socks

Winner Country Prize
m*****.d****.6*@g****.c** France Surprise branded swag
q**********@g****.c** Russia Surprise branded swag
c**********.c**@g****.c** United States Branded stickers and socks
Artur K. Russia Branded stickers and socks

General Prize Draw

Winner Country Prize
M*******@g****.c** Belarus Samsung Note
j********@h******.c** United States Microsoft Surface Pro 6
w*****************@o******.c** United States iPhone 11
Avinash S. India OnePlus 6T A6013 128GB
u*****.o*******@y****.c** Romania AWS Deep Racer
n**************@h******.c** Turkey Oculus Quest
d****@y****.c** Mexico Oculus Rift S
b**.k**@g****.c** Ukraine Samsung Chromebook 3
b********@g****.c** Ukraine Apple AirPods
r**********@g****.c** United States Tello
d***.e******@o******.c** United States Amazon Echo
b*******.r***@y*****.r* Russia Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
n****************@g****.c** India TOZO T10 TWS Bluetooth 5.0 Earbuds
Kudakwashe M. South Africa $30 Easyspace gift voucher
Oleksandr D. Ukraine $30 Easyspace gift voucher
Zubeir T. Kenya $20 Dev.to voucher
Alexey P. Ukraine $20 Dev.to voucher
j******@g****.c** Estonia $20 Dev.to voucher
w*****.k.j******@g****.c** United States $20 Dev.to voucher
b********@g****.c** Ukraine $20 Dev.to voucher
Charles W. Australia $20 Dev.to voucher
Bahram H. Azerbaijan $20 Dev.to voucher
s**************@g****.c** India Steam $10 gift card
c*********@g****.c** United States Steam $10 gift card
Slava K. Russia Steam $10 gift card
a******.o*******@g****.c** Mexico Steam $10 gift card
m************@g****.c** India Steam $10 gift card
a****@u****.e** United States Steam $10 gift card
k*******@g****.c** Russia Steam $10 gift card
g*********@n****.c** Korea, South Steam $10 gift card
Yukikazu O. Japan Steam $10 gift card
Tina P. United States Steam $10 gift card
m******@g****.c** Russia Steam $10 gift card
Gerry O. United Kingdom Steam $10 gift card
************@y****.c** South Africa Steam $10 gift card
k********@i*****.c** United States Steam $10 gift card
b****.s*********@g****.c** United States Steam $10 gift card
s********@y****.c** United States Steam $10 gift card
e********@g****.c** Italy Steam $10 gift card
e***.t*********@g****.c** Slovakia Steam $10 gift card
m*************@g****.c** India Steam $10 gift card
b*****@g****.c** Turkey Steam $10 gift card
i***.u******@g****.c** Russia Steam $10 gift card
r**********@g****.c** France Steam $10 gift card
w.k**********@g****.c** Kenya Steam $10 gift card
j****.a*@g****.c** Brazil Steam $10 gift card
l**********@1**.c** China Steam $10 gift card
m***.l***.n******@g****.c** Argentina Steam $10 gift card
m*********@g****.c** Ukraine Steam $10 gift card
d**************@g****.c** India Steam $10 gift card
c*********@g****.c** United States Steam $10 gift card
r*********@g****.c** United States Steam $10 gift card
e********@m***.r* Russia 6 months SitePoint Premium Subscription
Mirza B. Pakistan 6 months SitePoint Premium Subscription
e**.s*********@g****.c** Indonesia 6 months SitePoint Premium Subscription
t*******************@g****.c** Nigeria 6 months SitePoint Premium Subscription
r**************@g****.c** India 6 months SitePoint Premium Subscription

The State of AR/VR Survey prize draw

Winner Country Prize
l**********@g****.c** Kenya Oculus Rift S
l************@o******.c** Australia Oculus Rift S
m************@g****.c** Germany Samsung HMD Odyssey
m**********@g****.c** Germany Samsung HMD Odyssey
h**********@g****.c** Turkey Echo Dot
c************@y****.c** United States Echo Dot
t************@g****.c** Hungary Echo Dot
h*****.a****@g****.c** India $40 RedBubble voucher to get dev swag
a****************@g****.c** Pakistan $40 RedBubble voucher to get dev swag
Q******@g****.c** Vietnam $40 RedBubble voucher to get dev swag
l**********@g****.c** Kenya MergeVR Goggles
t***************@g****.c** Hungary MergeVR Goggles
g*******@g****.c** India MergeVR Goggles
l**********@g****.c** Kenya WeMo Mini Smart Plug
h********.a**@g****.c** India WeMo Mini Smart Plug
l*******@g****.c** Kenya WeMo Mini Smart Plug
n***************@g****.c** Ukraine Udemy AR/VR course
Gourab C. India Udemy AR/VR course
i**********@y****.c** United States Udemy AR/VR course
n*************.1***@g****.c** India Developer Economics socks
l*********@g****.c** Kenya Developer Economics socks
p****************@g****.c** Russia Developer Economics socks
t*********@g****.c** Hungary Developer Economics socks
e*****.e***@g****.c** Turkey Developer Economics socks
Nguyễn D. Việt Nam Developer Economics socks
n************@g****.c** Ukraine Developer Economics socks
p********@g****.c** Russia Developer Economics socks
Umakant S. Myanmar Developer Economics socks
Nguyen H. Singapore Developer Economics socks

Extra Prize Draw

Winner Country Prize
e*************@g****.c** United States Echo Dot
g***********@g****.c** United States $40 RedBubble voucher to get dev swag
r*******@g****.c** India WeMo Mini Smart Plug
d*****@y****.c** Nigeria Echo Dot
Steve H. United Kingdom JBL GO 2 Portable Bluetooth Waterproof Speaker
Supriyo D. India Developer Economics Hoodie
p************@g****.c** Spain $30 Amazon gift card
Leonardo C. Brazil JBL GO 2 Portable Bluetooth Waterproof Speaker
k******@g****.c** United States Developer Economics Hoodie
Mike H. United States Echo Dot
e********@h******.c** Sweden NPET K10 Gaming Keyboard
r*******************@g****.c** India Steam gift card $20
s*********@g****.c** Canada Echo Dot
d*******@h******.c** India $40 RedBubble voucher to get dev swag
y******@i****.r* Belarus Developer Economics Hoodies
Snehha P. India TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip
Francisco M. Mexico $30 Dev.to voucher
p****.t*******.t**@g****.c** Portugal Developer Economics Hoodie
s****************@g****.c** Nigeria Google Home Hub Smart Display
Catalin E. Romania WITTI Design BEDDI Glow
s.u**@d****.b** Italy $20 Udemy voucher
Sandeep P. India Clean Code by Bob Martin
Erdinç H. Turkey $40 RedBubble voucher to get dev swag
w**********@s***.c* Canada Developer Economics socks
Daniel R. Mexico Amazon Echo
m*********@g****.c** United States $40 Easyspace gift voucher
r**********@y****.i* Italy $20 Dev.to gift voucher

We wrote to all prize winners yesterday by email. If you recognise the email fragment as yours and we haven’t contacted you, please drop us an email at community@developereconomics.com.

Please note that the list only includes prize-draw winners and not runner-ups. However, if the prize draw winners do not claim their prizes within 10 workings of us contacting them, then runner-ups will be invited to claim them instead.

Not a prize winner? Although you didn’t win this time, we have a new survey wave coming up and we’ve got our fingers crossed for you… Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming survey wave. We’ll officially announce all the details (and the incredible prize list) in June 2020!

If you are not already a member of our developer community and would like to join, and win prizes like these, find out more here.

Categories
Events Tips

Job Fairs for Tech Seekers

How easy is it for a developer to find a job? Someone would say really easy, given that developers are high in demand worldwide, but getting just the right job can be tricky.

You know, that job which will allow you to work remotely, on your own time schedule, offering training opportunities and also feel like you are making a difference. Believe it or not, this job really exists and finding it is easier than you thought.

Why choose a job fair?

For software engineers who are looking for an environment that will boost their productivity and most importantly their creativity, tech job fairs might be the best option for their search. Here’s why:

  • Networking. It’s the right place to establish meaningful connections & relationships with company representatives and other fellow developers.
  • You get to meet the company’s employees. Talk face to face (leaving aside the formality of an email) and ask the questions that are really troubling you, such as “Does the company provide a supportive environment for studies?” and many more.
  • Getting ahead of the competition. Let’s face it, even a spotless CV cannot compete with the lasting first impression. While a well-written resume can reflect your skills and experience, it could never show the soft skills employers are looking for.

Depending on the stage of your career and your geographic location, job fairs may be the next destination for your job search. That’s why we did the research for you! Below we have gathered some of the most interesting job fairs running in Europe & USA, for tech job seekers.

Tech Job Fairs in Europe:

  • London Tech Job Fair Spring 2020 by TechMeetups.com
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    Venue: Central Foundation Boys’ School, Cowper Street, London, EC2A 4SH
    Country: United Kingdom
    Date: Thu, 27 February 2020, 18:30 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: causaLens, Digital insight, Workindenmark & more
  • Munich Tech Job Fair Spring 2020 by TechMeetups.com
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    Venue: Munich (More info TBA)
    Country: Germany
    Date: Thu, 19 March 2020, 18:00 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: Jobsens.ai, Actyx, Hubert Burda Media, KAL & more
  • Barcelona Tech Job Fair Spring 2020 by TechMeetups.com
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    Venue: Ilunion Hotel Barcelona, Carrer de Ramon Turró, 196-198, 08005 Barcelona
    Country: Spain
    Date: Thu, 26 March 2020, 18:00 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: Nestle, Netcentric, Workindenmark & more
  • Tech Job Fair Berlin by Tech Job Fairs
    Pricing: FREE
    Venue: Deutsche Telekom AG Hauptstadtrepräsentanz, Französische Straße 33a-c, 10117 Berlin
    Country: Germany
    Date: Thu, 16 April 2020, 15:00 – 20:00
    Speakers: QT, Cern, Deutsche Telekom, Zizoo, & more
  • Amsterdam Tech Job Fair Spring 2020 By Techmeetups
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    Venue: Software Improvement Group, Fred. Roeskestraat 115, Amsterdam, 1076
    Country: Netherlands
    Date: Thu, 23 April 2020, 18:00 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: KLM Royal Dutch Company, Reducept & more
  • Bern Tech Job Fair 2020 By Techmeetups
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    Venue: Berner GenerationenHaus – Spittelsaal, Bahnhofplatz 2, Postfach 3001 Bern, 3001 Bern
    Country: Switzerland
    Date: Thu, 30 April 2020, 18:00 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: MIACAR, TieTalent.com & more
  • Zurich Tech Job Fair Spring 2020 By Techmeetups
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    Venue: VOLKSHAUS ZÜRICH – Weisser Saal, Stauffacherstrasse 60, CH-8004 Zürich
    Country: Switzerland
    Date: Wed, 6 May 2020, 18:00 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: Contovista, MIACAR, TieTalent, Nortide & more
  • Tech Job Fair Vienna by Tech Job Fairs
    Pricing: FREE
    Venue: Aula der Wissenschaften, Wollzeile 27a, A-1010 Vienna
    Country: Austria
    Date: Wed, 13 May 2020, 14:00-20:00
    Speakers: Willhaben, Global Blue, Voi, Coders.Bay, Women And Code, & more
  • Madrid Tech Job Fair 2020 By Techmeetups
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    Venue: Wild Code School Madrid, Calle de Serrano Anguita 10, Madrid
    Country: Spain
    Date: 14 May 2020, 18:00 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: AG Solution, Wild Code School & more
  • Hamburg Tech Job Fair 2020 By Techmeetups
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    VenueHamburg (More info TBA)
    Country: Germany
    Date: Wed, 20 May 2020, 18:00 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: TBA
  • Stockholm Tech Job Fair Spring 2020 By Techmeetups
    Pricing: FREE (VIP Job Seeker Pass €10.00 + €1.83 Fee)
    Venue: Things, Drottning Kristinas väg. 53, Stockholm, 114 28 Stockholm
    Country: Sweden
    Date: Thu, 28 May 2020, 18:00 – 21:00
    Hiring companies: TBA
  • Tech Job Fair Lisbon by Tech Job Fairs
    Pricing: FREE
    Venue: Lisbon (More info TBA)
    Country: Portugal
    Date: Thu, 24 September 2020, 15:00 – 20:00
    Speakers: BNP Paribas, IAESTE Portugal, Grow Remote, Zoi & more
  • Tech Job Fair Zurich by Tech Job Fairs
    Pricing: FREE
    Venue: VOLKSHAUS / WEISSER SAAL, Stauffacherstrasse 60, 8004 Zürich
    Country: Switzerland
    Date: Thu, 15 October 2020, 15:00 – 20:00
    Speakers: Onedot, Voi Technology, talent4gig, SwissPropTech & more

Tech Job Fairs in the USA

  • IoT World Careers Fair by Informa Tech
    Pricing: FREE
    Venue: San Jose McEnery Convention Center, 150 West San Carlos Street, San Jose, CA 95113
    Country: United States
    Date: Wed, April 8, 2020, 14:00-17:00
  • WITI Annual Summit Career Fair by Professional Diversity Network
    Pricing: FREE
    Venue: Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, 1333 Old Bayshore Hwyr, Burlingame, CA 94010
    Country: United States
    Date: Wed, June 24, 2020, 10:30 – 14:30

What next?

Hopefully, this article helped some of you out there, searching for your next step. If you want more career advice, a while back we had a look into the Game Designer evolution and navigating between product and custom software development.

If you’ve heard of any other Job Fairs focusing on the tech industry please go ahead and leave us your comment.

Categories
Community

Let the survey feedback begin

The Developer Economics Survey Q4 2019 has just closed and we couldn’t be more excited to see what our community has to tell us, not only through the survey but also through its valuable feedback comments.

Οur mission is to help the world understand developers and developers explore current trends in their industry. In order to get there, we run global surveys twice a year to explore trends across different areas of development, such as mobile, industrial IoT, ARVR, web and many more. We include hobbyists, professionals and students making sure our sample is as inclusive and diverse as possible wave on wave.

In total, we had 7,316 feedback comments from survey participants. Once more, our team took the time to read each and every comment! We have to admit, there are some pretty good ideas in there. We are currently assessing and evaluating the suggestions we received, hoping to include as many improvements as we can during our next survey wave.

Bottom line is we really appreciated every comment we received. The suggestions help us evolve, the positive comments really boost our mood, the negative ones make us work harder and the funny ones… let’s just say they are the highlights of our day.


Feedback from Developer Economics Q4 2019 Survey

Some were great suggestions:

  • Add keyboard controls to the survey to let me fill it out quicker.
  • As a follow up on my last survey suggestion, in which I suggested making your survey less visually bland by adding some backgrounds in place of stark white; I would like to add, making them seasonal background designs. Aesthetics is the key to development.
  • There used to be jokes in these, you should add them back. You also used to add a profile with a character in these, would love if that were back too.
  • Ask about ethics/privacy stuff, e.g. how are you feeling about the way the company you work for treats its user’s data.

Some were great to read:

  • I love you
  • Amazing experience! sharing it.
  • Great survey! Fun and educational
  • This was the most thorough survey I’ve ever completed. To the point and crisp questions. Wonderful job!!
  • I might sound blunt and rude but I had never heard of developer economics, previously. But I’m impressed by the smart selection of questions for this survey and the overall experience on your site has been awesome. Surely gonna remember developer economics
  • “console.log(“that was a great time.. I enjoyed answering.. Thank you!!”);”
  • The survey is one of the ways to reach millions of people and hear diversify opinions. Kudos to the organizers

And some just made us laugh:

  • Ale, you understand the ending of Evangelion? 
  • I’m sorry but I will not be able to pay 
  • as I said, fluffy support kittens. 
  • Delicious survey^^

During each survey wave, there are a few recurring comments we receive. The more prevailing have to do with the survey length – it’s long – and with our purpose. It’s not always easy to address each one separately, so we went ahead and created a blog post answering all these questions. We asked our Director of Research to create this with special care for our developer community. You can find it here.

Finally, now that the survey is closed, we’d like to thank everyone who took the time to complete the survey and share their comments with us. We promise to use all this insightful feedback to improve our future surveys.

Stay tuned for our upcoming State of the Developer’s Nation Report 18th edition which will be published by the end of this month. You will find it here as for our previous reports too.

Did you think of anything post-survey? Please do feel free to share with us.

 

P.S. For more developer news, tools, resources, events and fun, why not sign up to our newsletter.

Categories
Platforms

Major Issues When You Use Mobile App Builders

Having a brick-and-mortar location isn’t enough for the average business anymore. Rather, both large and small businesses need to take the time to build an online presence for themselves. This connects them with their customer base directly and makes it easier for potential customers to find the business. 

Specifically, apps have a special level of potential. When a company has an app, they’re likely to see higher profits, increased customer loyalty, greater brand recognition, and more business from each customer. Smart Insights put the benefits and cost of mobile apps well in their infographic.

However, there is more than one way that developers can tackle building an app. One of the first answers that come up in response to the need for an app is often to use a mobile app builder. Yet, these have some key disadvantages that you need to know. 

Limitations of Template Design

Mobile app builders put a focus on beginners and busy teams that don’t want to worry about custom coding. While convenient, this comes with an unfortunate drawback. It’s difficult to make a striking and unique product when starting off of a generic base. This is a major risk in a market in which, according to Statista, there are currently almost 2.5 million apps with additional ones being released every day. 

In addition, it’s very hard to fundamentally change a template. So, even if developers have the expertise to make changes, it’s going to be difficult if not impossible to achieve the same results as an app developer company when using a mobile app builder. Once again, this limits individual creativity because it won’t allow developers to heavily adapt to the company’s distinct tastes, aesthetics, and needs. 

Access to Limited Features

The features that mobile app builders offer also come back to the downfall of their simplicity. Because users are catered to in a way that doesn’t require them to custom code or program anything into their apps, many mobile app builders are designed with a drag-and-drop feature.

In these cases, there are a number of predetermined features available in the app builder. When developers find a feature they want in their app, they basically drag it into their workspace and drop it where they need it to go. The exact way that the builder works vary from software to software but the general concept is usually the same.

To be fair, there are plenty of mobile app builders that have wide libraries of features to use in apps created on them. That being said, any library of pre-set features is, by nature, limited. Much like templates, this inset limitation isn’t inspiring when it’s juxtaposed with the need to stand out from a crowd of other apps.

Dependence on the Platform Used In Development

When an app is created from scratch by a development company or team, there isn’t a platform that the app is dependent on. On the other hand, when an app is developed on a mobile app building platform, it’s dependent on that platform. If the platform changes or, in the worst-case scenario, shuts down, your company may struggle to update or even regularly maintain the app without transferring it to a new platform or system.

This also comes down to ownership as well as functional convenience. If your company uses a mobile app builder to create an app, it only partially owns that app. After all, the app isn’t just created with the company’s intellectual property but with the technical property of the app builder.

The problem with this is that many mobile app building platforms hold some control over the content created on them. If a problem arises or if the company that owns the platform isn’t entirely trustworthy, the platform is well within its rights to delete or lock a user out of their account or even refuse to continue future service with them. If your business loses progress on an app, it can cause a noticeable decrease in profits, damages to customer relations, and the cost of recreating the app in a different form.

mobile app

Dedication to a Single Platform

As just mentioned, when a company builds an app on one of these app building platforms, they give up some of their ownership rights to that app. One of the other consequences to these terms is that many companies struggle to transfer their app from one platform to another.

If your company is using the app builder to create an Android app, for example, this can be a particular problem. This is because if they decide to expand the app, such as creating an iOS version, by taking it to another builder, they may run into problems with the terms of service for the builder they’re already using.

Additional Charges from a Mobile App Builder

A surprising fact for many developers is that building a custom app with an app development service can oftentimes be less expensive than using an app builder. A big part of this is thanks to the set fees that app development services set out at the beginning of their time working with a company.

Mobile app builders vary slightly here. Of course, they have an upfront cost of using the platform but this often changes over time. For instance, as the app grows, it will need more space for data storage. Also, certain features may need to be upgraded to handle higher volumes of traffic.

mobile app

When this happens, though, mobile app building platforms may charge additional fees for these additional features. This means that the investment in the tools used to create, maintain, and upgrade the app can exponentially increase over time. 

Mobile App Builder: Conclusions

A mobile app builder is enticing, in large part, thanks to the convenience and ease of use. However, it would be misleading to think that these are the perfect tools. From the inconveniences of limited design choices to the legal challenges of sharing ownership of the app, these platforms make the development and maintenance process more challenging than it needs to be. As an alternative, working with an app development service will offer companies a custom app with less red tape to complicate the process.

Additionally, there are various tools you can use for app development. If you are into ARVR apps, we have created a list of Top 5 Tools for Augmented Reality in Mobile Apps.

What has been your experience of working with mobile app builders?

Categories
Business Community

Developers: Sometimes You Can Quit Your Day Job

Today, I’d like to share the story of two members of the Samsung Developer Program community and the paths they took that allowed them to pursue their passions.

Developers: sometimes you can quit your day job!

First up is Melanie Lombardi, from Echo Visuals. Five years ago, she received a Galaxy S6 Edge device as a gift and discovered she could personalize her device with content from the Galaxy Themes store. Soon after, she saw a banner in the store that Samsung was accepting new applications for themes designers. She applied, was selected, and initially created a few free themes which consumers liked and downloaded. After that, she moved to create paid themes and began to monetize her work. She, and her husband John, focused on creating high-quality, animated themes that Samsung’s customers instantly took to. After a few years, she was able to quit her full-time job and turn her passion into a new business.

This business has now grown to seven full-time employees building content for the Galaxy portfolio of devices. As one of Samsung’s top themes sellers, Echo Visuals was one of the winners in this year’s Best of Galaxy Store Awards, which recognizes top apps and content.

Echo Visuals

Second is Tony Morelan. Tony had spent his entire career as an independent graphic designer focused on all things tech.  In 2017, he heard about the opportunity to build watch faces for Galaxy Watch wearable devices. He was excited about the opportunity to apply his design skills to popular technology and make some additional money on the side.

As he built and sold watch faces through the Galaxy Store under the brand name Axeir, Tony found that he also loved being a part of the Samsung Developers community. He shared best practices with other designers and tips for getting discovered in the store. He soon realized “teaching” filled a void he never knew he had.

When a job opportunity came up for Tony to join Samsung as a developer evangelist, he jumped at the chance. For more than a year now, Tony has been advocating for our ever-growing community of designers and creating new tools to help them be successful.

Tony Morelan

Pursuit your passion

When Melanie and Tony joined the Samsung Developer Program, they never could have anticipated where it would take their careers.  To all of my peers in developer relations, how are you enabling those in your community to grow and discover new opportunities?  To all of the developers and designers out there, have you tried something new lately?  You’ll never know where it may take you.  Sometimes you can quit your day job and pursue your passion.

Lori FraleighLori Fraleigh is the Senior Director of Developer Relations at Samsung Electronics. She is an established industry thought leader in developer relations, software tools, development environments, and platforms. Lori is passionate about delivering an awesome developer experience and excels at breaking things. Prior to Samsung, Lori held similar roles at Intuit, Amazon/Lab126, HP/Palm and Motorola Mobility. Earlier, she led RTI’s developer tools business to a successful acquisition by Wind River. Lori started her career working on mission control software at NASA/Loral and is a Virgin Galactic Future Astronaut.

Categories
Community

How developers see themselves?

For the first time in our Q2 2019 Developer Economics survey,  we tried to introduce developers in their own words by asking them about how they see themselves.

We provided a set of 21 words and asked them to choose up to five to form a word sketch of their personality. We also gave them the opportunity to provide their own text description.

Here’s what we got:

developers

Over half of the developers say they are logical

Perhaps unsurprisingly, nearly six out of ten developers say they are logical. And as it turns out this is the most popular choice of description across all software development sectors, except in games development.  Next in line, but some way behind, are the descriptors team player and introvert at 37% each. By comparison, just 10% label themselves as an extrovert. But can you guess which programmers consider themselves less introvert? Those involved in AR/VR and IoT sector. Interesting, right?


Moving on to a slightly more unusual pair of labels: there are slightly more dog lovers than cat people in the developer population, although the numbers are close at 15% and 13% respectively. A much greater difference seems to exist though between developers working at night (night owls, 29%) and those who prefer the fresh morning breeze (early birds, 14%).  

 

developer

What about hobbies and spare time?

A third (33%) of developers say they are a reader, which makes it the most popular choice of description related to spare-time activities. It is closely followed by 31% who say they are a gamer. Our data shows that developers tend to perceive themselves differently as they grow older. More than one in three developers up to the age of 34 years consider themselves to be a gamer, compared to fewer than one in four of the 35-44 age group, and fewer than one in five of the 45-54-years.  Older programmers are more likely to describe themselves as readers.

 

What’s this “real life” you’re talking about like? Is it similar to WoW? Does it run on a 64 bit OS?”


Other activities such as
music and sport score lower, at 20% and 17%. A low 7% make LEGO models, although the popularity of LEGO seems to be very much dependent upon age. A respectable 12% of developers under 18 make LEGO models, but the proportion halves to 6% within the age group 18-24. 

What about the artistic ones?

Even though a developer’s work demands a high level of creativity, just 14% use “artistic” to describe themselves. Those involved in games or in augmented reality and virtual reality development are far more likely than others to use this word to describe themselves. 21% of game developers and about 25% of AR/VR developers see themselves as artistic, as compared to 16% or less of desktop, web and backend developers. 

Lastly, in out Q2 2019 Developer Economics survey, a few programmers were confused as to why we were asking the question and pondered if we were trying to set up a dating site. Well, we weren’t! We were collecting the data to create the State of the Developer Nation Report, 17th Edition.

Interested in joining forces with 40,000 developers worldwide in shaping the future of the developer ecosystem? Take our survey.

 

Categories
Community Platforms

Decoding development trends: The 17th State of the Developer Nation Report is out

Every six months, the Developer Economics Survey captures the voice of more than 20,000 developers globally. Our surveys engage developers working across mobile, desktop, IoT, cloud, web, game, AR/VR, machine learning development and data science, decoding development trends.

The 17th Developer Economics survey ran between June and  August 2019. The data analysed provided really interesting insights about the different developer profiles out there.

For instance, one in three developers are all-rounders. Only one in five declare themselves as specialists. There are almost four times as many introverts (37%) as extroverts (10%) among developers. This is a significant difference from the 2:1 ratio in favour of extroverts found in the wider community.

We also included several unusual labels, uncovering, for example, that there are double the number of night owl developers than early birds (29% compared to 14%).. What time is it with you right now?

2X night owl developers compared to early birds (29% compared to 14%

Javascript remains the Queen

Looking, into programming language trends we found that JavaScript remains the queen with a community of over 11M active developers. On the second tier we have Java (6.9M) and Python (6.8M).

Our data challenges the assumption that developers’ language use is relatively stable over time. Instead, it seems that developers drop and adopt new languages all the time, depending on their needs and on their running projects.

Kotlin is the rising star among programming languages. It moved up from 11th to 8th place in just a year.

Ÿ
Growing interest and adoption in 5 emerging technologies

We saw a significant increase in developers’ involvement and adoption of five technologies in the 6 month period ending Q2 2019. These are DevOps, mini-apps, computer vision, cryptocurrencies, and fog/edge computing. For DevOps in particular, the percentage of developers who are either interested in it, learning about it, or have already adopted it increased from 66% to 70%.

Computer vision, on the other hand, saw a noticeable growth in the number of developers involved in it.  Meanwhile, the share of those developers who are actually adopting it increased only slightly.

Interest in robotics and quantum computing also increased.

However, the share of interested developers that are working on the technology dropped.

ŸInterest and adoption in blockchain applications other than cryptocurrency, conversational platforms/voice search, drones and biometric technologies remains constant.
Ÿ

Streaming games and extending reality

ŸJust 16% of professional and 10% of hobbyist game developers say they are actively working on designing games for streamers to live-stream their gameplay to an audience. Gameplay streaming is mostly associated with brand promotion and revenue generation. Therefore, the difference between professional and hobbyist interest is to be expected.

One in five AR/VR game developers design for gameplay streaming. This might be because they are the most comfortable with different models for their games, on emerging hardware and across new business channels.

Decoding development trends across regions and screens

  • 2 out of 5 app developers in Asia build apps for messaging platforms and/or chatbots.
  • 34% of mobile developers used cross-platform frameworks in the last 12 months (40% of professional mobile developers, 33% of hobbyists and students).
  • Almost one in four mobile developers opt to use React Native.
  • 31% of mobile developers whose primary target is iOS are using React Native. This compares with 21% of those who primarily target Android.

You can read the full State of the Developer Nation report here.

We look forward to decoding development trends in our next report. You can help shape the trends by taking the 18th Developer Economics survey here!