Client Perspectives: Developers in 2022

Alas! We have reached the halfway point of 2022, so we thought it would be a good time to reflect on the perspectives of developers this year and what this means for your recruitment. Business owners and developers have now had six months to work towards those New Years’ resolutions, so what is going on in the world of development and what is fresh in the mind of a dev right now? Well focus is still very much on building infrastructure in mobile app development, blockchain technology, cloud computing, machine learning and AI. The latter in this list, AI, is likely to have captured the attention of software engineers around the world after news broke of Google’s LaMDA AI system potentially achieving sentience. This may lead to an increased adoption of Google’s machine learning API, TensorFlow as devs begin to gain proficiency in this burgeoning sector. In regards to another major player on that list, blockchain, despite the recent and extreme bear market, capital is set to keep flowing into the building of this infrastructure with VCs such as a16z and Sequoia reserving enormous funds to facilitate the continued building of Web3. All in all, the technology sector still holds enormous potential for developers in 2022 and this is set to continue, with developers more in demand than ever. 

As per TechRepublic, the U.S. was the most lucrative country for developer jobs where the average salary was $95,879, with 44% of the developers surveyed earning $100,000 or more and 5% earning more than $200,000. Switzerland was next with an average salary of $90,462, followed by Canada with a salary of $71,193. Other countries offering healthy salaries were the UK, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. Polling developers also seem that AI proficient engineers are some of the most in-demand, with cloud computing, DevOps and big data engineers also extremely valuable. Although less exciting, traditional web developers continue to be the most crucial hire for many businesses. Although not as forward-thinking as blockchain and AI, businesses are still increasingly digitizing and thus need devs to assist them. TechRepublic also looked at the most in-demand programming languages with JavaScript, Java and Python being cited as the top three that recruiters will seek for job candidates in 2022. It seems that C, C++ and C# also will be in demand, but for some lesser-known and more niche languages, such as Clojure and Scala, there will be more job demand than supply. React.jss and Node.js remain important, meaning devs that can create client-server applications in one programming language, JavaScript, are also in demand. 

Thus, in 2022, some demand areas such as niche languages will find there is an imbalance between job roles and developers that have the relevant proficiencies, whereas in areas such as machine learning and AI, it is likely that there are more devs looking for roles here, than firms hiring in 2022. Whilst we are sure this will change, this means that recruiters must bridge the gap between developers and potentially less desirable roles. This can be achieved through salaries and job benefits and so on. 2022 is set to be a fantastic year to be a developer and the future too looks bright.

As always, if you want to take your recruitment to the next level, please do get in touch!