State of Tech Hiring 2024

Developers say that salary, work-life balance, and remote working options are their most important considerations, in that order. These priorities remain unchanged, compared to last year. 

So yes, remote possibilities are still just as important to tech talent—if not more. 31% of developers say it’s a prime concern, up from 28% last year. So maybe reconsider that return-to-office (RTO) policy you’ve been working on?

Among HR, there’s been a lot of talk of the 4-day week this year. As far as tech talent is concerned, this workplace benefit has yet to move from the “nice-to-have” category to the “must-have” category. Only 7% of developers say it is one of their top 3 considerations.

But, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things they’d like to see more or less of.

Around 67% of tech professionals surveyed said that they already use AI as part of their job. And, it would seem, that number is set to grow.

Indeed, 43% of developers say that they’re optimistic about what AI can bring to their work lives (see below), and 60% of developers say they want to use it more.

Still, doubt lingers around this technology. 23% are skeptical, and 6% go as far as to say that they’re worried about the technology’s impact on their career or job prospects.

Another 22%% say that they’re on the fence about whether or not more AI at work is a good or a bad thing.

Yes, the vast majority of those using AI at work, are using ChatGPT.

Copilot is our runner up, and others mentioned in the comments section include Tabnine, Codeium and Phind.

33% of the developers surveyed said that they don’t use any AI at work. We take a closer look at this below.

We asked the 33% of developers who aren’t using AI on the job, why not?

29% of developers said that they don’t trust the technology, while 28% said that their employer is against it.

A quarter of developers find AI to either be unreliable or inefficient.

Respondents also commented that in certain cases, it’s just not relevant and useful to the specific work they do.

Others expressed a reluctance to “turn over” their work to AI. Some went as far as to say that doing so would be “lazy”, “unethical” or detrimental to their skills.

36% of developers say they’re not interested in taking on managerial responsibilities.

Some programmers will shine as individual contributors, while others make good people managers, superb tech leads, notable architects, or outstanding mentors.

We asked recruiters and hiring managers if they had clearly documented career ladders. Less than half said that their company has built a career progression framework for all technical positions.

15% say that there is a career ladder in place, but only for some roles.

Bearing in mind that “better advancement opportunities” is the number one reason developers change jobs, companies need to do better.

Approximately ¾ of developers are happy with their current management. Hooray!

On the flip side, those who aren’t happy, may well do something about it. 13% of developers say that they’re looking to move elsewhere “in search of better management”.

It’s important to regularly collect feedback from the tech team on their manager expectations.

On top of the fact that a portion of developers feel less secure in their jobs, some have also less faith in their ability to change companies or roles.

In 2021, we asked developers how easy they thought it would be to change jobs (on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being extremely easy). The average answer was 7, it’s now down to 5.

It looks like the mix of hiring freezes, tech layoffs and economic uncertainty that hit the talent market has left developers feeling slightly shaken.

Those that are looking to go elsewhere, are mainly looking for better advancement opportunities and higher salaries.

While money is a motivating factor in finding a new role, companies looking for the key to retention might be surprised to see that salary doesn’t even break the top three reasons developers stay in a job.

Work/life balance (38%), great colleagues (37%), and exciting challenges (27%) are what entice employees to stay put.

Moral of the story? Even if you’re able to offer attractive salaries, you still need to put time and effort into building a caring, collective and exciting work environment.

Despite the fact that 67% of developers are already using AI as part of their job, there’s some intriguing controversy around candidates’ usage in the hiring process.

Close to one quarter (23%) of recruiters and hiring managers consider the use of AI by candidates cheating. Only 8% actively encourage it, and almost half (48%) say it’s acceptability depends on usage.

We find it surprising that so few companies encourage the use of what’s become an everyday development tool in the interviewing process. But, what do developers think?

Only 19% of developers would openly use AI during the recruitment process.

Shockingly, a third of developers actually consider the use of AI during an interview or technical test to be cheating.

Do they consider it cheating, because they know (or think they know) that companies consider it cheating? Or because they have high expectations of AI and its capabilities?

Will a broader integration of AI in the recruitment process influence this view? Time will tell.

Developers are decidedly torn on whether or not AI should be included in the recruitment process.

Our take? We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again. The technical hiring process should mimic an on-the-job coding experience—and that includes tools.

How can you assess how a developer would perform on-the-job, without providing them with their usual on-the-job tools?

Recruiters and hiring managers say it takes them an average of 5 weeks to hire a tech candidate.

How does your company compare?

Despite the fact that HR tech providers have thoroughly embraced AI this year, some recruiters (just like developers) remain weary of this new technology.

When we asked those who don’t use AI at work why that was, mistrust and employer policy were the top stated reasons.

This year’s hiring goals are slightly more ambitious than last years.

In 2022, 35% of companies were planning to hire over 50 developers. 2023 goals were slightly more timid, with only 23% of companies hiring at that volume. This year, ambitions are picking up again, with 30% of respondents saying they plan to hire more than 50 devs in 2024.

Recruiters are mainly looking for junior to mid-level engineers.

Indeed, organizations have shifted their priorities in the past year and have less demand for senior developers.

Last year, 31% of recruiters were looking to hire senior profiles. This has dropped to 18% this year.

This may be because they’ve filled those open senior positions, or perhaps this is related to budget constraints.

Last year, post-pandemic, we noticed two things: the number of freelance developers increased, and there was a notable boom in companies turning to external contributors (63%).

This year, 57% of recruiters stated that their company hires contingent workers for their tech needs.

Is this linked to the fact that in-house recruitment seems to be picking up? Maybe budget is being allotted elsewhere? It will be interesting to see how this trend affects hiring in 2024.

An increasing number of companies are looking abroad for tech talent. In 2022, 40% of recruiters said that they hire internationally. That number has risen to 51% this year.

Sure, refined remote policies make this possible. But maybe the current fervor for skills-based hiring is also facilitating this trend?

When skills are placed at the center of recruitment strategies, other defining factors are put into perspective, barriers are lifted.

Those that source technical roles outside of their country say that they do so for a number of reasons.

The top motivator is budget, stated by 42% of respondents. Recruiters also outsource to increase the size and diversity of their talent pool.

Indeed, finding qualified candidates is the top cited hiring challenge, year in, year out. Sourcing internationally is one way to cast a wider net, while managing costs.

A few years back, we saw a leap in the number of companies hiring developers with non-academic training.

Between 2021 and 2022, the number of recruiters hiring from this pool just about doubled.

However, since then, we’ve seen very little change.

In 2024, as a growing number of recruitment professionals ditch degree requirements, and share the benefits, will those last 20% be swayed?

Think that only HR professionals value soft skills? And that engineers only value hard, technical skills?

Think again.

A whopping 78% of developers and 81% of recruiters say that soft skills are at least as important as hard skills when it comes to software engineers.

Yes, soft skills matter.

For developers, the challenge is knowing how to showcase those skills.

For recruiters, getting better at defining and assessing those skills will be key for 2024.

Recruiters highlighted the same top 2 challenges this year as they did last year:

• Finding qualified candidates
• Identifying potential, even if candidates don’t have the perfect matching skillset

Identifying potential may have become a little easier, with less respondents pinning it as a top challenge this year vs. 2023 (down 4%). There’s a good chance that recruiters have better tooling, but there’s still room for improvement.

We also see that soft skills are decidedly tricky to assess. 1 in 5 recruiters say it’s the hardest part about hiring developers.

About one quarter of tech recruiters will have more budget to recruit for technical roles in 2024 vs. last year.

17% say they have the same envelope as last year and 14% say they have less.

The remaining 44% either aren’t yet clear on their 2024 budget, or aren’t sure how it compares to 2023.
This data shows that, for the most part, companies are still investing in their technical recruiting.

AI tools are, by far, the number one thing that companies plan to invest in, when it comes to their HR efforts.

We’re on the edges of our seats, excited to see how AI will impact processes, products and teams.