The Stereotypical Developer in 2018
Introducing: Joe, the stereotypical developer in 2018. Inspired by the 100,000 devs who participated in the 2018 Stack Overflow Developer Survey.
Maybe you know someone like Joe?
Maybe you see yourself in Joe?
Maybe… you are Joe!
Hey, I’m Joe. I’m 30 years old, white, straight, and male. Classic.
I wake up at around 7:30 am to the sound of no children. Bliss. Then I’m off to my full-time job at a web development/design company. I’m a back-end dev, but get my hands dirty in front-end too (full-stack, baby!). About 60 people work here, but my dev buddies are the best.
I’ve got a pretty sweet setup: 2 monitors and an ergonomic keyboard & mouse. I spend between 9 and 12 hours on my computer, so it’s gotta be comfortable.
I’ve been working here for about a year. I like it. We use the agile methodology to stay on track, and I check my code into git multiple times a day to keep momentum.
Let’s talk nerdy! I code in the classic HTML / CSS /JavaScript combo. For the front-end I use Angular or React (I effing love React!), and for the back-end I use Node.js (so good!). I stick to a MySQL database, but my mates are loving Redis and PostgreSQL. I go for Linux (which is awesome), but my co-workers rave about Serverless and AWS.
I’m not looking for a new job, but if something came up I’d think about it. Especially if they pay well, and give me experience with awesome tech like Rust, Kotlin, Python, TypeScript, Go, and Swift. Oh, and machine learning is interesting — I see devs going crazy for TensorFlow and Torch / PyTorch. Just keep me the hell away from VB6, Oracle, and Cordova, and I ain’t touching SharePoint, Drupal or Salesforce either!
How did I get here? Well… I started coding about four years ago. Got a Bachelor of Computer Science and haven’t stopped since. I’m playing with Python, MongoDB and Android at home for fun by reading the official docs and using Stack Overflow.
One day I might start my own company, but I want to stay techy over the next five years. I’ll keep you posted, see you next year!
It’s impossible to keep up with JavaScript.
You’re catching up every chance you get. Scrolling… reading… refreshing… skimming. You’re lost in 42 browser tabs of articles, tutorials, and GitHub repos. You bookmark a handful to check out later (or, never).
It’s overwhelming. There’s too much to know.
