The Stack Overflow Developer Survey will again survey the Stack Overflow community in 2024. 65,000 software developers worldwide took part in the study this year. How has the salary data compared to 2023? You can find an overview in this article.

If you are also interested in German tech salaries, take a look here.

What is Stack Overflow?

Stack Overflow is a platform for software developers ask questions and exchange ideas with the community. With over 100 million website views per month, it is one of the 500 most popular websites on the Internet. Many software developers use Stack Overflow in their daily programming work to solve problems, learn new things or interact with other software developers.

What is the Stack Overflow Developer Survey?

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey is an annual study various topics concerning software developers. It is divided into the following main topics:

• Overview
• Developer profile
• Technologies
• Artificial intelligence (AI; new since 2023)
• Work
• Community
• Professional developers
• Methodology

Overview

The „Overview“, traditionally the introduction to the study, which describes the topics covered and the focus the study. In the last study from 2023, the topic of „AI“ was added, to which Stack Overflow also added its new product Stack Overflow Labs.

Developer profile

The „Developer Profile“ describes the school career and educational opportunities that software developers use to become software developers.

Extract 2024: Across all ages, knowledge in the tech sector is primarily acquired with the help of online resources. The frontrunners here are technical documentation (>80%). Artificial intelligence (AI) is also on the rise with 37%.

Technology

In the „Technology“ section, the study shows the most popular programming languages, frameworks and co. of the software developers surveyed.

Extract 2024: The most popular technologies in 2024 are JavaScript (programming languages; 62.3%), PostgreSQL (database; 48.7%), Amazon Web Services (AWS) (cloud; 48%), Node.js (web frameworks; 40.8%), .NET (5+) (other frameworks; 25.2%), Docker (other tools; 53.9%). In addition, Visual Studio Code is the most popular development environment (73.6%) and Raspberry Pi (38.6%) is the most popular embedded technology.

With the exception of Docker, all technologies show a slight decline compared to 2023.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

The „AI“ section has been included in the study for the first time since 2023. It describes how AI is used in software development.

Extract 2024: 76% of participants are using or planning to use AI in the development process this year. This is an increase compared to 2023 (70%). At the same time, 43% of respondents are convinced and 31% are skeptical about the results of AI.

70% of respondents do not see their job at risk from AI.

Work

The „Work“ section sheds light on the professional situation of developers. What salaries do they earn? Which companies do they work for? What influence do they have on the technologies used?

Extract 2024: The number of developers working hybrid has remained the same compared to 2023. The number of remote workers, on the other hand, has fallen by 3.41% (2024:

38%; 2023: 41,41%). On the other hand, the number of „on-site“ employees will increase by 3.59% (2024:

20%; 2023: 16,41%)

Community

„Community“ describes the use of Stack Overflow itself by the participants.

Professional developers

The „Professional developers“ section describes the working environment of software developers in the company. This includes communication with each other as well as the use of tools and programs.

Extract 2023: 61% of all participants spend more than 30 minutes of a working day looking for solutions to problems.

Methodology

The last section of the methodology shows how the study was planned and analyzed. This also includes feedback from the participants on the study itself.

Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2024: Participants and evaluation

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2024 surveyed a total of 65,437 participants (2023: 89,184 participants) from 185 countries. 84% of them are full-time software developers. That is 54,967 software developers.

Tech salaries at a glance

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2024 asks a total of 12,785 participants from the USA about salary (compared to 2023: 11,396 participants). 64.8% of them are employed full-time, 9.1% are full-time students and 11.1% are freelancers. The remaining 15% are made up of part-time employees and students as well as non-employees and retirees.

Salaries for software developers in the USA have fallen in many areas compared to the previous  year.

Salary: Senior Executive (C-Level, VP, etc.)

At management level, the average salary in 2023 was $220,000. In 2024, this will rise to $225,000. This is an increase of +2.27%.

Salary: Engineering Manager

At the middle management level, the average salary in 2024 is $192,500. In 2023, this was $195,000. A reduction of -1.28%.

Salary: Data Scientist / Machine Learning Specialist

For data scientists and machine learning specialists, the average in 2024 will be down to A slight reduction of -0.63% compared to 2023 ($160,000).

Salary: Data Engineer

Data Engineering is down -6.25% to $150,000 (previous year: $160,000).

Salary: Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

In Cloud Engineering, the average salary in 2023 was $185,000. In 2024, the average salary is only $165,000. A reduction of -10.81%.

Salary: DevOps Specialist

In the DevOps sector, the average salary will fall from $160,000 (2023) to $145,000 (2024). A minus of -9.38%.

Salary: Backend Developer

Backend Developer registers an increase of +3.03%. It goes from an average of $165,000 (2023) to $170,000 (2024).

Salary: Frontend Developer

In the front-end sector, the average salary in 2024 is $135,000, a drop of -3.57% compared to the previous year ($140,000).

Salary: Full Stack Developer

Full stack developers earn an average of $130,000 in 2024, a reduction of -7.14%compared to 2023 ($140,000).

Salary: Mobile Developer

Mobile developers record a strong increase of +13.5%. From an average of $163,000 (2023) to $185,000 (2024).

Salary: Embedded Developer

Embedded developers lose -7.14%. The average salary in 2024 will be $130,000 (2023: $140,000).

Salary: Security Professional

Security professionals continued to record a sharp drop of -24.86%. From an average of $173,000 (2023) it goes down to $130,000 (2024).

The study also shows other salary data. For example, that of the Game Developer (2024: $125,000), the Site Reliability Engineer (2024: $166,500) or the System Administrator (2024: $83,080).

You can find a detailed insight into the study here: Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2024

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