Recently, GitHub released the findings of a survey that involved 500 developers from enterprise companies in the United States to understand their perspectives on the developer experience. The survey revealed that 92% of developers incorporate AI into their day-to-day work, they are actively seeking enhanced collaboration, and placing emphasis on communication skills.
Inbal Shani, chief product officer at GitHub, reported the survey findings in a blog post. Shani mentioned that there is a substantial gap between a developer's daily work and discussions surrounding "what developers want," which is widely acknowledged. Sensing the need for organizations to empower their developers, the survey set out to understand the typical experience for the developers.
For the majority of developers, having a positive workday involves acquiring new skills. With Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted development gaining popularity, 57% of developers believe that AI coding tools enhance their coding language skills. In comparison, 41% of developers see these tools as potential aids in preventing burnout. Nearly all developers are leveraging AI coding tools, with 67% utilizing them both in and outside of work and 25% incorporating these tools exclusively during work hours.
Developers want to work in a highly collaborative environment, providing them with a sense of satisfaction, productivity, and impact.
Source: Survey reveals AI’s impact on the developer experience | The GitHub Blog
Enhancing developer collaboration enhances code quality, and as per survey respondents, it should be considered a performance measure. This observation is intriguing since various methodologies, from DevOps to Agile, consistently emphasize the importance of collaboration.
As per a recently published research from DevEx, organizations can improve the developer experience by identifying the top points of friction that developers encounter, and then investing in improving areas that will increase the capacity or satisfaction of developers. There are an increasing number of organizations establishing C-level initiatives around developer experience.
Furthermore, the survey participants pointed out that despite investments in DevOps, wait times for builds and tests remain an ongoing issue. The impact of this waiting leads to a developer’s ability to learn new skills and design solutions to novel problems. About 39% of developers said that getting feedback from end users creates a positive impact on their workdays. However, getting the feedback remains a challenge. The primary tasks for development teams on a daily basis are writing code (32%) and identifying and addressing security vulnerabilities (31%).
The survey, conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of GitHub, took place online from March 14th, 2023, to March 29th, 2023. It involved 500 non-student developers based in the United States, excluding managers, who are employed in organizations with 1000+ employees.
We saw good engagement from the tech community on Twitter to this survey, as the survey results tweet got 83 likes, 19 retweets, and 2 quote tweets.