26,086 people from 157 countries participated in our 45-question survey. 6,800 identified as full-stack developers, 1,900 as mobile developers, 1,200 as front-end developers, 2 as farmers, and 12,000 as something else.

We conducted this survey to help us better understand our community and to help our community better understand itself. For 2 weeks in early February we ran ads for the survey on Stack Overflow, posted it on Meta Stack Overflow, and shared it across social media.

These results are not unbiased. Like the results of any survey, they are skewed by selection bias, language bias, and probably a few other biases. So take this for what it is: the most comprehensive developer survey ever conducted. Or at least the only one that asks devs about tabs vs. spaces.

See the link in the footer to download the full data set.

There are now more than 7.2 billion people on planet Earth. About 32 million of them visit Stack Overflow monthly, and more than 25 million are return visitors. Return visitors land on Stack Overflow an average of 6 times every month. These are our Active Users in the map above.

This survey under represents developers who don't like to take English surveys. It's biased against devs in countries like China, Brazil, and Japan, who participate on Stack Overflow less than devs in other non-English speaking countries. It's for these devs that we've started to launch localized versions of Stack Overflow. Wherever you live, whatever language you speak, we want to help you build as efficiently and collaboratively as humanly possible.

• Top 6
• Bottom 6

Accounting for 25% of all sessions, the United States is the top traffic source to Stack Overflow. India is second (12.5%), followed by the UK (5.5%), and Germany (4.2%). But Luxembourg delivers more uniques per capita than any other country.

_{25,831 responses}

At the time of this writing, the average developer is 28.9 years old. He or she was born in April 1986, just as IBM manufactured the first megabit chip.

Programmers are especially young in developing countries like India, where the average developer is just 25 years old.

_{25,744 responses}

Software development has a gender balance problem. Our internal stats suggest the imbalance isn't quite as severe as the survey results would make it seem, but there's no doubt everyone who codes needs to be more proactive welcoming women into the field.

_{24,827 responses}

The programming field is growing extremely rapidly. In the United States, nearly 40% of doctors have 10+ years of professional experience. By contrast, only about 25% of developers worldwide have more than 10 years coding experience. Most of those veteran developers have probably been coding professionally much shorter than that.

• Women
• Men

Compared with men, women who code are nearly twice as likely to have less than 2 years programming experience. We hope this means more women are joining the industry and closing the gender gap.

_{21,314 responses}

There are many ways to learn how to code. 48% of respondents never received a degree in computer science. 33% of respondents never took a computer science university course. System administrators are most likely to be self-taught (52%). Enterprise level services developers are most likely to have an industry certification (13%). Machine learning developers and data scientists are 10 times more likely than any other developer type to have a PhD (15%).

_{16,522 responses}

For many developers, programming is a labor of love. 70% of respondents reported that they spend 2 or more hours per week programming either as a hobby or working on open source software. 20% of respondents spend more than 10 hours programming away from work. The average developer spends more than 7 hours per week coding on the side.

• 2015
• 2014
• 2013

• Most Loved
• Most Dreaded
• Most Wanted

We asked respondents what programming languages and technologies they've developed with over the past year and what languages and technologies they want to develop with. By comparing status quo vs. aspiration we can see how developers perceive available programming tools.

• 2015
• 2014
• 2013

For the third year in a row, we asked respondents which operating system they use the most. Windows maintains the lion's share of the developer operating system market, while Mac appears to have overtaken the Linuxes among active Stack Overflow devs.

Linux may be a small player on the consumer market, with just 1.5% of global desktop operating system share, but it's a go-to OS for developers.

_{16,778 responses}

Developer type influences choice of text editor. Either that or Emacs turns people into mathematics-focused developers. Data scientists and machine learning developers are about 3 times more likely to use Emacs than any other type of developer.

Developers prefer working with a dark IDE theme. We did a little further mining and discovered desktop developers prefer a light theme, front-end developers prefer dark, and mobile developers are split down the middle.

_{16,694 responses}

Source control is an industry standard tool. However, fun fact: about 10% of developers still don't use it.

_{25,807 responses}

After millennia of heated debate, mercifully, at long last, we have an answer. Most developers prefer tabs to spaces.

Upon closer examination of the data, a trend emerges: Developers increasingly prefer spaces as they gain experience. Stack Overflow reputation correlates with a preference for spaces, too: users who have 10,000 rep or more prefer spaces to tabs at a ratio of 3 to 1.

Like most working humans, developers demand caffeine. The average developer drinks 2.2 servings of coffee, tea, Surge, or other caffeinated beverage every day. Nordic devs drink much more coffee than most.

• 2015
• 2014
• 2013

We provided respondents with a list of 24 common developer types and asked them to choose the occupation that best describes what they do. For the third year in a row, "full-stack developer" was the most common response.

_{1,900 responses}

Of more than 22,000 respondents, 1,900 said they are primarily a mobile developer. Android developers outnumber iOS developers 4 to 3. Just over 2% of mobile developers identify as Windows Phone developers. 20% of mobile developers don't identify with a particular mobile platform.

_{1,018 responses}

We've been able to identify a number of emerging developer types by observing patterns in Stack Overflow users' browsing behavior. Developers with a stats and math background and machine learning developers are a couple of these new dev types. Data scientist is a related developer type that is slightly more established.

• Multiple Choice
• Write-in

The spectrum of developer types is vast, and it's often unclear where one type ends and another begins. More than 300 respondents identified as DevOps, nearly 200 identified as business intelligence or data warehousing experts, and 59 identified as "growth hacker" – the smallest segment of developers among the multiple choice options.

"Other" developer types make the field even more interesting: nearly 1,600 respondents submitted a write-in response for occupation. Game developers and designers made up the largest segment among write-in dev types. More than 100 write-in respondents included multiple dev types in their occupation choice. Only one respondent wrote in that he/she works with lasers.

• Total
• Asia
• Eastern Europe
• United States

Respondents from developed countries are more likely than others to say they work in an industry outside the traditional software powerhouses.

• United States
• Western Europe
• Eastern Europe

We asked respondents how much they earn in US dollars, including bonus. We cross tabulated compensation with competency in specific technologies to see which tech pays best.

Niche or emerging technologies pay big bucks. So does big data and cloud computing. This may reflect a shortage of certain skills in the workforce – companies are willing to pay more when hiring for cutting edge skillsets. It's also likely that developers with niche competencies are just better developers all around.

When it comes to quality of life, dollars, Euros and Yen don't matter. Big Macs matter. The Economist's Big Mac Index is a measure of purchasing power parity that can be used to compare the true value of compensation between workers in different economies.

Where can an average developer eat the most (and live the best)? The survey says: Ukraine, where Big Macs cost only about $1.20.

• Total
• United States
• India
• Russia
• Brazil

Remote work pays. Developers who work remotely full-time earn about 40% more than those who never work remote. The disparity is more pronounced in developing countries.

_{% average salary by country. 13,224 respondents from top 35 responding countries.}

We always said participating on Stack Overflow is good for your career. Now we have proof.

In truth, we don't know that there's any causal link between reputation and compensation, but indulge us for a moment. If rep equals money, you could get a 10% raise just by going from 1 to 100 rep on Stack Overflow. If rep equals money, you would only reach average developer status once you earned between 200-499 rep. And you'd earn 135% average salary once you hit 10,000 rep. It may be a good time to hunt a bounty...

_{21,306 responses}

If you're a software developer, you probably have a job. 97.5% of workforce respondents are employed in at least a part-time capacity.

And even if you work full-time, you probably code on the side. The average fully employed developer spends more than 6 hours every week working on open source, side- or hobby projects. Retired developers spend nearly 3 times as many hours on hobby projects. Code is life for most devs, and for many coding is a lifetime pursuit.

_{16,174 responses}

We asked respondents how satisfied they are with their current job or jobs. 76% of developers report being at least satisfied with their job, and 36% love their job. Developers are generally more fulfilled by work than most employees.

• Most Satisfying
• Least Satisfying

It feels good to be the boss. Executives are 16% more satisfied (on an arbitrary 5-point scale) than average (3.36). Product managers are generally the least satisfied with their jobs.

_{16,154 responses}

29% of developers work at least part-time remote. This is up from 21% last year. More developers are choosing to work from home and more companies are embracing the remote workplace. (We're one of those companies.)

_{18,890 responses}

Code is breaking down cubicle walls. 50% of developers say working remote is at least somewhat important. Note to companies trying to hire: if your job listing doesn't include remote, you could be cutting your possible applicant pool in half. And you may be eliminating the most qualified developers from consideration. Stack Overflow users with 5,000+ rep are twice more likely than other developers to say "remote optional" is non-negotiable.

_{16,399 responses}

Stack Overflow users have saved their fellow developers millions of hours of work. We asked respondents how often the answers they find are are helpful. 86% of respondents say answers are usually or always helpful.

_{16,519 responses}

Two-thirds of respondents say they visit multiple times per day.

• Respondents
• Active Users

We asked respondents how much Stack Overflow rep they have. (We double-checked responses vs. actual rep for users who provided account info – our users are remarkably honest people.) Whereas respondent rep distribution includes 100% of respondents, active user distribution includes only the ~5% of Stack Overflow visitors who are ever signed-in.

_{16,397 responses}

We asked respondents why they use Stack Overflow, allowing for multiple answer selections. More than half of respondents use Stack Overflow to help other developers. Nearly 3 out of 4 developers are here to get help for their job. 2 out of 3 developers say they are motivated by a passion for learning new things.

_{15,980 responses}

60% of survey respondents have provided an answer on Stack Overflow. What motivates answerers? More than any other motivation, developers answer because it feels good to help a fellow developer. More than half of respondents answer to leave artifacts that will help many developers in the future. And 6% of Stack Overflow answerers don't know why they answer – they just do.