News

Software Engineers Want to Learn Machine Learning, Love Python, Survey Says

• By David Ramel
• February 28, 2019

A new survey of software engineers from careers firm Hired shows they want to learn machine learning, love Python, hate PHP and make a lot of money, especially in San Francisco where search engineer salaries average about $157,000.

Furthermore, according to the 2019 State of Software Engineers Report, blockchain engineers are highly sought after, seeing a huge 517 percent year-over-year increase in demand, far exceeding the 132 percent increase in demand for No. 2, security engineers. Hired said it publishes the report to fuel career conversations among developers and to provide data they can use to achieve goals.

Topping the list of those goals is learning machine learning.

"Machine learning is the No. 1 technology engineers want to learn," the report said. Machine learning was followed by user experience and blockchain.

Speaking of blockchain, the distributed ledger system comes with somewhat of a disconnect between engineers' interest in the technology and the incredible uptick in demand for engineers skilled in the technology, the report indicated.

"Our survey revealed that company demand and developer interests don't always match," the report said. "For example, blockchain engineering is the most in-demand skill on the Hired marketplace, yet only 12 percent of survey respondents identified blockchain as the top technology they want to learn about, while 19 percent said the opposite. For machine learning, interests and demand are in sync: 61 percent said machine learning is the number one or two technology they're interested in learning about."

That blockchain demand heads the list of the top takeaways of the report as compiled by Hired:

• Global demand for blockchain engineers is up 517 percent
• Search engineers in San Francisco are paid the most, earning $157K on average
• TypeScript is the most in-demand programming language in San Francisco, London and Toronto, while Ruby is 1st in New York and Go is 1st in Paris
• Python is the most loved programming language, and PHP wins most-hated



• 1 in 5 software engineers are self-taught
• Half of engineers prefer to work at a company that does pair programing
• 43 percent of developers prefer to work for companies that contribute to open source projects

Survey methodology involved the collection of proprietary information by Hired's data science team, which focused on 13 cities, culling details from interview requests, job offers and other sources in the firm's marketplace of more than 10,000 participating companies and 98,000 job seekers. Survey responses from more than 700 software engineers on the Hired platform was also used.