Even amidst recent layoffs in the tech industry, recruiting developers with the right skills remains the top challenge for 2023, according to the new Reveal survey of 2,228 software developers and IT professionals released by Infragistics.
More than a third of respondents (37.5%) indicated that they will continue to have trouble finding skilled developers in 2023 with DevOps Engineer, Data Analytics Developer, and IT Security Engineer identified as the hardest jobs to fill.
While nearly all developers (88.8%) work with a designer or design team, nearly half of a developer’s time (43.4%) is spent on coding an app, the survey found. The lack of skilled developers is being solved by the use of low-code/no-code tools in three-quarters (76.8%) of organisations.
Casey McGuigan, Reveal and Slingshot product manager, Infragistics, said: “The industry continues to face a struggle in filling skilled software development positions as we race to digitise the business world. Organisations are turning to new solutions like low code/no code tools that require little to no up-front hand-coding to address insufficient skills, solve problems and save money.”
Developers Face Communication and Collaboration Difficulties in 2023
Other key pain points in 2023 are the communication and collaboration difficulties within remote and hybrid teams. Now that many organisations have moved to remote/hybrid teams and downsized their physical presence with only 18.6% of software developers and IT professionals working fully on-site, difficulties communicating and collaborating with team members in the new digital environment have arisen.
While more than half of respondents (57.9%) said they have more time to complete work projects due to reduced commuting time, four in ten (42%) have trouble keeping track of projects and a third (31.9%) said they are less productive in the hybrid environment.
A third of software developers (31.5%) incorporated new software for remote/hybrid workers in 2022 as they struggled to identify the best ways to ensure optimal productivity. More than half (54.4%) want to use one tool where everyone can collaborate and resolve issues. Another 47.5% would like to automate workflows and processes and 43.7% prefer to eliminate manual file sharing.
“The remote/hybrid workplace has resulted in a myriad of issues as software developers installed new online collaboration tools and sought ways to improve productivity,” explained McGuigan. “This is where all-in-one digital workplace tools benefit organisations by eliminating time consuming app switching, incorporating project and task management, content management, collaboration, data analytics, and data catalogue capabilities, allowing teams to manage workloads more intelligently, stay on top of deadlines, and make smarter business decisions that are backed up by hard facts.”
2023 Software Development Challenges
Keeping pace with innovation in developer tools, managing workload, security threats and project management were also identified as pain points for 2023.
The Reveal survey found that software developers plan to better utilise their resources in 2023 by improving project management (30%), improving designer/developer collaboration (30%), using software that will work for citizen developers (27%), utilising remote staff (25%), and incorporating a data catalogue/analytics catalogue (25%).
Other major challenges in 2023 will be an inability to keep pace with innovation in developer tools (27.7%), difficulty with third party integration (26.70%), struggles to manage workload (26.2%), security threats (26.10%), project management (26.10%) and client expectations too high (26%).
Embedded Analytics is Still on the Rise
Embedded analytics and business intelligence continue to rise in popularity with eight in ten software developers (80.8%) incorporating these analytics tools into their products in 2022, a 3% gain over 2021.
The demand for embedded analytics in apps developed for clients is also burgeoning with 48% of developers embedding analytics into client apps in 2022, compared to 30.8% in 2021. And 74.9% of software developers expect their organisation’s focus on business intelligence to increase in 2023.
“Embedded analytics help end users uncover insights without the help of data analytics experts,” said McGuigan. “More and more organisations will be embracing embedded analytics tools in 2023 because they are the key to improving productivity, increasing sales/revenue, understanding business problems and making better business decisions.”
Business Took a Downturn in 2022
The data shows that there has been a slight decrease in revenue growth with just 18.8% of respondents reporting an increase in revenue in 2022, compared to 25% in 2021. The percentage of developers who took on new projects dropped slightly in 2022 with 33.3% reporting new endeavours, compared to 36.22% in 2021. Just a quarter (25%) expanded into new markets, a drop of 8% over the previous year. Requests for proposals also declined in 2022, with a 12% decrease over 2021.
“Tech companies expanded rapidly during the pandemic and although some are restructuring and belt-tightening in the wake of overexpansion, digital transformation initiatives provide new opportunities for growth and revenue,” said McGuigan. “During the slowdown, businesses will continue to invest in IT infrastructure, applications, customer experience and digital transformation initiatives.”
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The shortage isn’t for lack of skilled labor, it’s for lack of wages.
The supply and demand is exact. There’s exactly the right amount of labor being supplied that capital demands.
Artificially supplying more labor will cause a drop in wages.
You want more Software engineers to enter the work force, increase salaries.
If you want to hire top-quality developers, then please pay top dollar for that developer. You can’t afford it? Then quit claiming there is a shortage. Is there a shortage of Bentley or a Ferrari cars? No, because most people can’t afford it. The average Google developer salary is at $13,000 PER MONTH. Can your company pay anything close to that? No? Then please answer me why you deserve the top quality engineer or skilled developer? With what money are you going to buy their services?
What you need to do is to start hire Junior developers right out of school and train them at your company and keep increasing their salary so they don’t leave for a better one they want to work for. You know, something called INVEST in your business. But you’re never gonna do that. That’s too expensive and uncertain for you, because all of you “employers” are just a bunch of scam artists that will never tell the truth about how you manage your economics of your company and what you actually can and cannot afford. Thousands of people have wasted years on IT education and can’t find a job right now because you’re saying they don’t have the experience(where are they supposed to get it?), but tricking them into taking an education with your “shortage of developers” myth, that’s something you will never admit any wrong doing in. Companies lying like this should be a criminal charge. Quit ruin peoples lives.