I don’t know if I should say this on a website devoted to programming, but I sometimes feel like *lowers voice* coding is actually the least interesting part of our lives.
After all, last time I got excited meeting someone at a conference it was because we were both into bouldering, not because we both use React. And The Social Network won an Oscar for the way it displayed interpersonal drama, not for its depiction of Mark Zuckerberg’s PHP code.
Yet for the past couple years, I’ve been running developer surveys (such as the State of JS and State of CSS) that only ask about code. It was time to fix that.
A new kind of survey
The State of Devs survey is now open to participation, and unlike previous surveys it covers everything except code: career, workplace, but also health, hobbies, and more.
I’m hoping to answer questions such as:
- What are developers’ favorite recent movies and video games?
- What kind of physical activity do developers practice?
- How much sleep are we all getting?
But also address more serious topics, including:
- What do developers like about their workplace?
- What factors lead to workplace discrimination?
- What global issues are developers most concerned with?
Reaching out to new audiences
Another benefit from branching out into new topics is the chance to reach out to new audiences.
It’s no secret that people who don’t fit the mold of the average developer (whether because of their gender, race, age, disabilities, or a myriad of other factors) often have a harder time getting involved in the community, and this also shows up in our data.
In the past, we’ve tried various outreach strategies to help address these imbalances in survey participation, but the results haven’t always been as effective as we’d hoped.
So this time, I thought I’d try something different and have the survey itself include more questions relevant to under-represented groups, asking about workplace discrimination:
As well as actions taken in response to said discrimination:
Yet while obtaining a more representative data sample as a result of this new focus would be ideal, it isn’t the only benefit.
The most vulnerable among us are often the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, suffering first from issues or policies that will eventually affect the rest of the community as well, if left unchecked.
So, facing these issues head-on is especially valuable now, at a time when “DEI” is becoming a new taboo, and a lot of the important work that has been done to make things slightly better over the past decade is at risk of being reversed.
The big questions
Finally, the survey also tries to go beyond work and daily life to address the broader questions that keep us up at night:
There’s been talk in recent years about keeping the workplace free of politics. And why I can certainly see the appeal in that, in 2025, it feels harder than ever to achieve that ideal. At a time when people are losing rights and governments are sliding towards authoritarianism, should we still pretend that everything is fine? Especially when you factor in the fact that the tech community is now a major political player in its own right…
So while I didn’t push too far in that direction for this first edition of the survey, one of my goals for the future is to get a better grasp of where exactly developers stand in terms of ideology and worldview. Is this a good idea, or should I keep my distance from any hot-button issues? Don’t hesitate to let me know what you think, or suggest any other topic I should be asking about next time.
In the meantime, go take the survey, and help us get a better picture of who exactly we all are!
State of Devs: A Survey for Every Developer originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.
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