career aims and opportunities

Most developers are happy in their field: 34 percent (2019: 33 percent) want to still be doing their current job in five years. Another 26 percent (2019: 23 percent) want to specialize further in their field. As many as 10 percent (2019: 13 percent) want to start their own business. However, 5 percent see themselves at a point in five years where they no longer want anything to do with software development. There's that, too.

The fact that the need for change is rather low among the majority could be due to the very high level of satisfaction among participants. 34 percent (2029: 37 percent) of developers are extremely satisfied, another 41 percent (2019: 39 percent) are very satisfied and 10 percent (2019: 12 percent) are simply satisfied. Only about 4 percent (2019: 3 percent) are dissatisfied.

48 percent (2019: 45 percent) of participants are not looking for a new job, while another 41 percent (2019: 44 percent) are satisfied but definitely open to new opportunities. 4 percent (2019: 3 percent) of employees are actively looking. 2 percent (2019: 3 percent) are self-employed and do not want to change.

Forty percent of the participants have been working in the same capacity for more than four years. The remaining 60 percent are spread over the "two to four years", "one to two years" and "less than a year" periods in increments of 20 percent.

What are the most important reasons for participants when choosing their job? With 17 percent each (2019: 18 percent), company culture and working atmosphere share first place with personal development opportunities, followed by the technologies used in the company with 14 percent. The distance from the place of residence to the workplace was not directly asked, but frequently mentioned in the comments. This is probably also reflected in the desire to be able to work from home, which ranks fourth with around 13.5 percent of responses (2019: 12 percent).

Since multiple responses were possible here, an interesting perspective emerges when the number of question participants is put in relation to the respective number of responses: of 678 people, 75 percent each place value on company culture and personal development opportunities, respectively, and 60 percent (2019: 52 percent) on the possibility of working from home. This is one of the few significant deviations from the previous year and is probably due to the Corona crisis.

When it comes to benefits, the topic of salary is clearly in the lead at 27 percent (2019: 26 percent). 16 percent (2019: 18 percent) of the responses refer to a budget for further training and 15 percent (2019: 15 percent) to a budget for computers and office equipment.

Since multiple responses were also possible here, an interesting perspective emerges again when the number of question participants is related to the respective number of responses: of the 683 participants, 84 percent (2019: 83 percent) place value on salary, 51 percent (2019: 57 percent) on a budget for continuing education and 45 percent (2019: 46 percent) on one for computers and office equipment. The 6 percent decline in the desire for continuing education is again very likely due to the Corona year.