Stack Overflow's Annual Report: Senior Executives Lead with $139,000 Median Annual Salary, Engineering Managers Rank Second, AI Agents Not Mainstream Yet

Here come the current situation of developers and the latest technological trends!

With large models everywhere, which one is the most popular among developers?
New programming languages are emerging constantly. Is it still worth learning new languages?
The myth of AI startups continues. What is the salary level of ordinary developers?
Job satisfaction, technological anxiety, and tool selection. What is the most real current situation of developers...

Recently, the programmer Q&A platform Stack Overflow released its annual 2025 Developer Survey Report. This survey collected feedback from over 49,000 developers from 177 countries and regions, covering multiple dimensions such as generative AI tools, AI Agents, mainstream programming languages, and work status, aiming to help developers understand the latest technological trends.

Before delving into the in - depth analysis, let's take a look at some key highlights in this report:

Over 80% of developers said they had used OpenAI's GPT models in the past year.

Although major technology companies are actively promoting the research and development of AI Agents, 38% of developers still said they had no plans to use them for the time being, indicating that AI Agents have not yet become mainstream tools.

Although AI Agents have limited impact on overall team efficiency, they perform excellently at the individual level - 69% of respondents believe that it significantly improves their productivity.

Claude Sonnet has become the most recognized large model by developers this year and is also the second most - desired model to continue using next year.

Since Stack Overflow started the developer survey 15 years ago, JavaScript has always ranked first in terms of usage. This year, Python's growth is particularly prominent, with its usage rate increasing by 7 percentage points from 2024 to 2025.

66% of developers said that the biggest frustration of using AI comes from the fact that it always generates results that are "almost correct but not entirely correct", giving a sense of "being plausible but not entirely accurate".

Only 3% of developers truly "highly trust" the results generated by AI.

In 2023 and 2024, more than 70% of respondents had a positive attitude towards AI, but in 2025, this proportion has dropped to 60%.

Only a quarter of developers are satisfied with their current jobs, indicating a relatively low overall satisfaction level.

Despite similar work experience (an average of 20 years), senior managers and engineering supervisors still have a higher median salary, exceeding $130,000. In contrast, the median salaries of founders, architects, and product managers range from $92,000 to $104,000.

The surge of AI beginners is reshaping the developer profile

There was a time when the IT industry was considered the domain of young people. According to the latest survey data, this statement still holds some truth: Developers aged 25 - 34 are still the main force, accounting for 33.6%, ranking first among all age groups.

However, it is worth noting that this proportion has decreased compared to last year. Meanwhile, the group of developers over 35 years old is showing an increasing trend, indicating that more experienced practitioners are still actively engaged in development positions, and some may even have switched from other industries.

On the other hand, AI tools have effectively lowered the threshold for learning programming, attracting a large number of young users to start. Among all developers using AI for auxiliary learning, those aged 18 - 24 account for nearly 70%, becoming the generation most eager to try new tools.

In terms of educational background, 30% of developers already have a bachelor's degree when learning programming this year, indicating that they are learning for higher education, career needs, or skill improvement. In contrast, this proportion was 24% last year, showing an increase in the proportion of people with higher education participating in programming learning.

According to the survey data, 45% of the respondents in this year's developer survey have been engaged in programming for less than 10 years, and developers with 6 - 10 years of development experience account for the highest proportion, at 21.1%.

Looking closely at the data, it is not difficult to find that although the AI era is often portrayed as "everyone can become a programmer", the premise is that individuals still need to have a certain programming foundation to truly use AI for application development.

Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, recently said that in the era of artificial intelligence, everyone is a programmer. The barriers of traditional programming languages like C++ and Python are being broken. People only need to talk to AI to complete tasks that originally required coding.

But in reality, most developers are still continuously learning new skills. Data shows that as many as 69% of developers spent time learning new programming technologies or languages last year. This shows that even with the help of AI, self - renewal and improvement of technology are still indispensable.

In addition, more than 36% of respondents learned how to use AI tools in the past year to meet work needs or promote career development.

So, how do people learn AI programming? Data shows that the most popular way is to learn through AI - driven tools and applications, with more than 52.5% of respondents choosing this path.

In this year's survey, StackOverflow officially added the " Architect " role option to the questionnaire, and the results show that it has jumped to the fourth - most popular position among respondents. The number - one position still belongs to full - stack developers, followed by back - end developers.

In terms of industry distribution, software development, the Internet, finance, and manufacturing are the fields where developers are most likely to gather.

Latest technological trends: Python's growth accelerates, 80% of developers have used OpenAI GPT models

JavaScript remains at the top, Python rises 7% in a year

In terms of the use of programming, scripting, and markup languages, JavaScript has always ranked first since Stack Overflow started publishing relevant surveys 15 years ago. Although the usage of TypeScript has increased rapidly in recent years, it has not yet shaken JavaScript's top position.

Meanwhile, Python's growth momentum is also particularly significant. After more than a decade of continuous growth, Python's usage rate increased by another 7 percentage points from 2024 to 2025, further consolidating its leading position in the fields of AI, data science, and back - end development.

From the perspective of "having used", Rust is the most beloved programming language among developers, with 72% of people saying they will continue to use it after having used it before. Followed by Gleam (70%), Elixir (66%), and Zig (64%). Among them, Gleam is a new entry on this year's list and has won the love of many developers as soon as it debuted.

Looking to the future, developers who have used Python hope to learn Rust and Go to advance to high - performance system programming.

PostgreSQL is the most commonly used database by developers

PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite are the most commonly used databases by developers.

In addition, the usage of the open - source Redis has increased significantly (+8%), highlighting its importance. As applications become more complex, the need for high - performance in - memory caching and data structures has made Redis an indispensable part of the modern technology stack.

Moreover, PostgreSQL is also the most popular and most anticipated database technology, ranking first since 2023.

In the field of cloud development, Docker has the highest growth rate

Docker has changed from a "popular tool" to a "tool that almost everyone uses". Its usage rate soared by 17 percentage points in one year, making it the technology with the largest growth rate among all surveyed technologies.

At the same time, the success of Rust has also led to the widespread love for its build tool, Cargo. Cargo is this year's "most beloved" cloud development and infrastructure tool, and 70.8% of respondents said they would continue to use it in the next year.

Web frameworks and technologies: Node.js remains at the top, FastAPI becomes a dark horse in growth

In the use of Web frameworks and related technologies, Node.js still ranks first, with a usage rate of 48.7%; React follows closely, accounting for 44.7%. Despite the continuous claims that jQuery is "on its last legs", it still ranks third.

Notably, the usage rate of FastAPI increased by 5 percentage points in the past year, becoming one of the most significant changes in the Web framework field. This indicates that more and more developers are turning to using Python to build high - performance APIs, further demonstrating the continuous strong momentum of the Python ecosystem.