Artificial intelligence now tightly shapes the future of coding, but developers aren’t unthinkingly buying into the hype.

In its 2025 Developer Survey, Stack Overflow collected responses from more than 49.000 developers across 177 countries, offering a comprehensive look into how developers navigate the AI-infused landscape.

The verdict? AI tools are everywhere, but skepticism is growing.

AI is now embedded in daily dev life like a co-pilot

This year’s headline stat is hard to ignore: 84% of respondents now use or plan to use AI tools, a notable jump from 76% in 2024. Even more telling, 51% of professional developers say they rely on AI tools daily. That’s not a sidekick, that’s a co-pilot.

But even as adoption soars, trust plummets.

AI use rises, trust falls

The most striking contradiction in the data? 46% of developers say they don’t trust the accuracy of AI output, up sharply from 31% last year. Fewer than one-third (33%) trust it, and only 3% report “high trust” in the results.

Among professional developers, trust is even more elusive. 2.6% of experienced devs claim to “highly trust” AI output, while 20% express outright “high distrust.” Verification is still king, especially in roles where accountability and precision matter.

The growing lack of trust in AI tools stood out to us as the key data point in this year’s survey, especially given the increased pace of growth and adoption of these AI tools. AI is a powerful tool, but it has significant risks of misinformation or can lack complexity or relevance.

– Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO, Stack Overflow

AI code that’s ‘almost right’ hurts productivity

When AI helps, it helps a lot – but when it fails, it fails just enough to create more work. A complete 66% of developers say they struggle with AI solutions that are close, but ultimately miss the mark. That leads to one of the most cited pain points: debugging AI-generated code, which 45% of developers say takes longer than writing it themselves.

Meanwhile, positive sentiment toward AI tools has declined. In 2023 and 2024, over 70% of developers had a favorable opinion. In 2025? That’s dropped to 60%, with professionals still more favorable (61%) than those still learning to code (53%).

GPT dominates dev workflows – for now

Despite misgivings, many developers still lean on AI to upskill. More than 36% of respondents report using AI-enabled tools to advance their careers or build new skills over the past year.

Unsurprisingly, OpenAI’s GPT models dominate the LLM space, with 82% of developers using them for software development tasks in the past year. Meanwhile, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet models are gaining traction, particularly among professional developers (45%) compared to 30% of those learning to code.

The majority of developers avoid agents, prefer simpler tools

While LLMs are standard, AI agents have yet to become widespread. A majority – 52% of developers – say they don’t use agents or stick to simpler tools, and 38% have no plans to try AI agents anytime soon.

But among those using them, the productivity payoff is clear: 69% say AI agents improved their workflow, 70% report reduced time on specific tasks. However, there’s a caveat: only 17% believe AI agents have improved team collaboration, making it the lowest-rated impact.

“Vibe coding” is a thing now, but not a serious one (yet)

Yes, developers are experimenting with “vibe coding”, prompting an LLM to generate entire applications or components. But don’t expect it in your production repo just yet: 77% of developers say vibe coding is not part of their professional workflow.

Instead, human interaction still dominates the developer’s problem-solving toolkit: 84% use Stack Overflow, 67% rely on GitHub, 61% go to YouTube, and here’s the kicker: 35% of developers turn to Stack Overflow specifically after AI-generated code fails. So, while AI is a flashy assistant, the dev community’s crowd-sourced wisdom still runs the show.

Dev happiness is (barely) up, and so is the salary gap

After a steep morale dip in 2024, developer happiness is starting to recover, though only slightly. This year, 24% of developers say they’re happy at work, up from 20% last year. It’s progress, but just barely. So what’s driving this uptick? Money, most likely.

Targeted salary increases in key roles are making a difference, but not for everyone. Despite having similar levels of experience (an average of 20 years), there’s a wide pay gap depending on title: Senior Executives and Engineering Managers report median salaries of $130K+.

Meanwhile, Founders, Architects, and Product Managers trail behind at $92K-$104K. This is a reminder that title and structure matter, even among highly experienced developers.

Remote work isn’t dead, but it’s far from equal

Work location flexibility also affects job satisfaction, but it’s unevenly distributed, as with salaries. In the United States, a strong 45% of developers now work entirely remotely. In Germany, just 21% report having the freedom to choose between remote and office work. The takeaway? Remote work is still alive and well, but your access to it depends heavily on geography and employer culture.

The gap goes deeper: 42% of committed code is now AI-assisted, yet developers spend more time reviewing it than writing it.

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Developers learn through various sources, from traditional books to informal online communities like subreddits. But with so much online content, how can you know what to focus on? To help you navigate this, we’ve curated a selection of evergreen books, blogs, and newsletters to help you enhance your skills and become an expert in your field.

Books as Essential Resources

Aware of the progress of technology, the expansion of AI tools, and other traps of “misinformation,” renowned experts have taken on the role of evangelists, generously sharing their knowledge with other members of the developer community.

Professional literature has become more accessible. We’ve selected ten evergreen books:

“Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship” by Robert C. Martin

As the title says – this book prepares you to write clean, readable, and maintainable code, which is crucial for long-term success in programming and a guarantee that no machine will replace you!

“The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery” by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas

This book is rich with practical programming advice, career tips, and how to improve your problem-solving skills. It’s a must-have in every programmer’s library at the beginning of their career!

“Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software” by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides

It provides the foundation for understanding design patterns in object-oriented programming, helping developers create scalable and reusable solutions.

“Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code” by Martin Fowler

It is a book that explains how to refactor code to improve its structure and design without changing its functionality, making it indispensable for maintaining and improving existing codebases.

“The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering” by Frederick P. Brooks

A true classic of programming literature! It explores the human side of software development, focusing on the challenges of managing software projects and teams.

“Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction” by Steve McConnell

As the ultimate guide to software construction, this book dives deep into best practices for writing high-quality code and provides comprehensive techniques.

“The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers” by Robert C. Martin

If you’re wondering how to become a professional programmer – a true expert in your field – this book focuses on discipline, ethics, and attitude in software development.

“Working Effectively with Legacy Code” by Michael Feathers

The development of technologies constantly requires improvements to existing code. Therefore, this book is crucial. It focuses on working with legacy code and teaches strategies for managing and improving older code while ensuring it remains functional and maintainable.

“Introduction to Algorithms” by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, Clifford Stein

Known as CLRS, this book is a comprehensive guide to algorithms and data structures, indispensable for developers who want to deepen their understanding of the core principles of computer science.

“Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” by Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman

How can you think like a computer and use programming to solve complex problems? This approach will turn you into a human-machine. With this book, not only will you manage computers, but you’ll become one!

Blogs and Online Communities

Although books represent the best way to acquire knowledge, we cannot overlook that we live in an instant-online world, where people prefer to instantly get the information they need. They enjoy concise and summarized data, and when backed by personal experience, it creates a win-win situation!

While you probably already have accounts on many of these platforms, here’s a list of the most relevant online platforms, ranked by traffic and number of members.

Stack Overflow

Until recently the most popular platform for asking and answering technical questions, bringing together developers worldwide. This platform allows developers to ask questions, share their knowledge, and learn from other community members, making it an invaluable resource. Stack Overflow significance has been replaced by gen AI assistants for the most part, but sometimes there’s nothing like copying and pasting code form StackOverflow.!

GitHub

A community-driven platform where developers collaborate on open-source projects, share code, and contribute to various repositories. GitHub has become an indispensable place for collaborative work, innovation, and progress in software engineering.

dev.to

This community-driven platform allows developers to post articles and tutorials and discuss various programming-related topics. Dev.to is a rich source of knowledge and a space for creative idea exchange among developers.

Reddit

Subreddits like r/programming and r/learnprogramming provide a platform for discussing programming challenges, sharing advice and news, and exchanging experiences among developers. These communities allow for quick connection and real-time learning.

daily.dev

A mix of Reddit-like forums, a news feed of the best engineering content, and a developer community daily.dev was founded with the idea to bring scattered online source of knowledge for engineers to one place. Don’t forget to join ShiftMag Squad there to stay up to date!

Hacker News

This social news site is dedicated to technology and entrepreneurship, offering a space for sharing articles, asking questions, and discussing the latest developments in the tech world. Hacker News gathers enthusiasts who want to stay updated with all the important industry topics.

Medium (Programming section)

Medium is a platform that offers a dedicated section for programming. Developers can find articles, tutorials, personal experiences, and advice there. It is a space for a deeper understanding of new technologies and professional skill development.

CSS-Tricks

Specializing in CSS and web design, this blog covers front-end development and design topics, offering many resources, tips, and tutorials. CSS-Tricks has become a key tool for anyone involved in web design and looking to enhance their skills.

Code Project

Code Project is a community that provides free access to articles, tutorials, and code samples covering a wide range of topics related to software development and programming. It is a true haven for developers of all levels, offering resources for all technologies and platforms.

SitePoint

SitePoint is a comprehensive online resource offering tutorials, articles, and courses on web development, design, and programming technologies. It is an extremely valuable resource for any developer who wants to expand their knowledge and improve their skills in the industry.

Newsletters for Real Geeks

There are indispensable newsletters for those who don’t want to miss any important news and prefer to have the latest updates from the programming world delivered straight to their inbox.

We bring you a list of the most popular newsletters, perfect for all developers and those who want to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and knowledge in the industry.

JavaScript Weekly

JSW is a weekly roundup of news and articles about JavaScript, one of the most popular programming languages.

Smashing Newsletter

This newsletter offers bi-monthly web design and development updates featuring articles, resources, and tutorials.

Frontend Focus

Focused on HTML, CSS, and news related to browsers, providing essential information for frontend developers.

CSS-Tricks

It offers tips, tricks, and techniques for using CSS, making it a valuable resource for developers working with styles and layouts.

Python Weekly

Python Weekly is a newsletter that delivers news, articles, and tutorials specific to Python, one of the most widely used programming languages.

React Status

This newsletter provides updates and articles on React and related technologies, keeping developers up-to-date with the latest in the React ecosystem.

Golang Weekly

Golang Weekly brings the latest news from the Go programming language community. Go is popular among developers who focus on simplicity and performance.

Ruby Weekly

Ruby Weekly is a weekly digest of news and articles about Ruby, a dynamic, open-source programming language focused on simplicity.

Hacker Newsletter

It is a weekly newsletter curating the best articles about startups, technology, programming, and more for tech enthusiasts.

DevOps Weekly

This newsletter focuses on DevOps and infrastructure, offering insights into best practices, tools, and trends in modern software development.

New Ways of Learning: Gamification and AI-Powered Tools

In complement to conventional learning methods, developers today benefit from clever ways to enhance their skills. Platforms like CodinGame, Swift Playgrounds, and Codewars offer gamified learning, making problem-solving more interactive and fun.

These platforms simulate real-world scenarios, promoting critical thinking and strategy development. Moreover, AI-driven tools such as GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and Tabnine transform how developers write code. By providing real-time suggestions and automating repetitive tasks, these tools help developers focus on more complex challenges, streamlining the learning process and making it more efficient.

The post Where and how developers learn in 2025? appeared first on ShiftMag.

Knowledge-as-a-Service or KaaS is a new abbreviation Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of StackOverflow, wants you to know. He presented KaaS, StackOverflow’s latest attempt to find a solution to its growing AI problems, at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin.

Their original AI problem was that developers were turning less to Stack Overflow and more to AI tools with their coding questions.

They tried to solve it by launching OverflowAI, a set of AI-powered products that were supposed to combine AI’s summarization, aggregation, and conversational capabilities with the immense knowledge base of the StackOverflow community. They also emphasized that those who provided knowledge are credited and cited as the main differentiators from AI coding assistants.

It obviously didn’t resonate with developers well enough, as StackOverflow announced in May this year that it would be partnering with OpenAI. The partnership will allow OpenAI to access years of StackOverflow’s community contributions to train its AI model.

Community-driven knowledge + AI

The result of that is Stack Overflow’s concept of combining community-driven Knowledge as a Service(KaaS) with AI while preserving the vital role of human contributors.

Chandrasekar opened his presentation with a critical point: data quality matters immensely in the AI race. Stack Overflow’s curated Q&A database, meticulously built over 16 years, is a goldmine for training AI models. The database is based on 60 million questions and answers, all curated by a knowledgeable and engaged community of developers and technologists.

He did not address the fact that these developers and technologists are becoming less enthusiastic about contributing to a knowledge base that uses their contributions to train AI models.

Stack Overflow in your IDE

One of KaaS’s key points is its design. It can be integrated with widely used development environments and tools like Microsoft Visual Studio Code, GitHub, Slack, Confluence, and Jira. This integration ensures developers can access and contribute to the knowledge base without disrupting their workflow, Chandrasekar says:

Tomorrow, if you’re going to be spending a lot more time in your IDE, we want to enable these trusted and attributed answers to show up there.

We want you to be able to post questions straight from your IDE into Stack Overflow and get answers straight in your IDE.

Photo: Marin Pavelić

Quo Vadis, Stack Overflow?

Chandrasekar said that with community-driven Knowledge-as-a-service, Stack Overflow will redefine how knowledge is shared and utilized in the tech industry, reinforcing its role as a cornerstone of the developer community.

His vision for Stack Overflow is this:

• Keep developers in their flow
• Provide them with trusted knowledge
• Support the continuous evolution of AI through community-driven insights

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Have you ever been approached with a mere “I get an error *waves hands*. Do you know how to fix this?” request for help from a customer or a non-technical colleague, containing no details whatsoever?

Or, differently, have you ever stumbled upon a problem while writing code, scratched your head, and investigated it for a few hours until you gave up and put in a gnarly workaround?

You just wasted a few hours, and the only result you arrived at was a bit of unsatisfactory tech debt. 

Relatable? 

It is for Ievgen Pyrogov, a software engineer from Ukraine who stumbles at code issues every day and has developed a methodology for the steps to be taken before reaching for help. He applies that methodology, called ‘Doing the homework,’ in his everyday work and likes to share it with other software engineers.

Gather the information

So, what does doing your homework mean when whatever you’re trying to do is just not working? For starters, it’s not googling or asking a question on StackOverflow as the first step!

Have you ever asked a StackOverflow question only to receive a request to provide more details before actual help can even start? Ievgen asks. Situations like that are what he calls “homework that is not done.”

While it’s hard to avoid “not doing homework” at all times—indeed, sometimes we get a generic “Segmentation fault” and have no idea what’s going on or where to get any additional info—that is not a typical case.

I am a strong believer that we can do so much more in collecting additional info. Through the years, I’ve adopted a habit of gathering as much information as possible before reaching out for help. That is what I call “doing my homework.”

Controlled discovery chaos

Doing the homework is not a chore but a source of joy and discovery for him because he enjoys learning new things and filling the gaps in his worldview the most in his work. What started as a chaotic discovery process has turned into a somewhat structured process.

I typically let my brain swim in the new information, unconstrained, organic, or chaotic, for the lack of a better word. If you walked past me during my discovery process, you’d easily see the number of tabs in my browser go from 3 to 30 in a few minutes.

Over the years, however, I started noticing patterns in my chaotic approach. For example, I start with Googling, then look through official documentation, then find other places on the internet that are typically not very well indexed by Google, etc. 

In another instance, intuition might tell me I need human help ASAP, so I start by writing a question and going to StackOverflow—in many cases, it makes a lot of sense to prepare and ask the question upfront before continuing a personal discovery adventure.

Did someone else encounter this problem before?

Asked to give an example of what the process may look like, Ievgen walked us through an imaginary situation:

Let’s say I am facing an issue that could be qualified as “a configuration issue.” while configuring something, I followed the steps from the official guide, and yet, somehow, the thing still does not work. The first question I would typically ask myself is: did someone else encounter this before me, or am I looking at something completely new? 

In situations like this, my instinct is to always start by opening Google in my web browser.

Google can be funny, though. Sometimes, it gives literally nothing in response to my search queries, prompting a question: Am I asking a novel question, or am I asking something so dumb that people don’t even bother putting it online?

So, the immediate next question I am faced with is: How do I even know what to Google for? These days, we are very privileged to be able to run Google queries by one of the genies, ChatGPT or Claude, asking them: “Here’s my situation—am I even asking the right thing here?” “What would be a good way to think about this problem?” or “What do YOU think about the issue at hand?”

AI models can give some interesting responses, although I typically try to curb my enthusiasm and treat it as a good food for thought, but not more than that. 

After asking AI and correcting myself a few times, I’d typically pick up the right trail with my search queries and end up on StackOverflow. But what if StackOverflow has no ready answer? That’s where it can get really interesting and where ChatGPT can really help brainstorm the problem and come up with a minimal generic reproduction example that is safe to be shared outside of the company environment.

Apart from asking, googling, browsing through StackOverflow, or using ChatGPT, I like to dig through archives for more clues on my issue. Sometimes, I use search capabilities built into the version control system; sometimes, I visit very specific bug trackers and try to search there; sometimes, I browse through IRC channels or very specific forums.

Ideally, what comes out of this process is a set of information:

Here’s what the official documentation has to say
Here’s what implementation actually does (according to VCS)
Here’s what folks on GitHub Issues say about this
Here’s what a recent change log entry has on the issue – it turns out something got fixed recently, and we’re still on an older version of the software that doesn’t have the fix

Ask, don’t act!

Apart from the joy of discovery and learning that he gets from the process of doing the homework, Ievgen roughly estimates that 60% of the time, doing it helps him find the root cause of issues without even posting anything online! 

Being an engineer, Ievgen admits, means being heavily biased towards taking action, such as jumping on writing a hotfix or digging into a rabbit hole. Hours and hours of futile work could be avoided, he says, if engineers could learn to step back and – ask questions.

 Questions that come to mind sound like this:

“How do I know this?”

“How can I verify this hypothesis?”

“What makes me so sure this holds true?”

“What can I do to verify this class of hypothesis faster?”

“What is it that I could remove from the equation while still demonstrating the problem?”

What I love the most after posting online is when people point out that my expectations were not entirely valid. I crave these moments, as this is when my “view of how the world works” fundamentally slightly adjusts and self-error-corrects.

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StackOverflow considers it against the collective collaboration nature of their community and causing significant disruptions to the site.

The freshly announced StackOverflow and OpenAI partnership will allow the AI company to “improve its AI models using enhanced content and feedback from the Stack Overflow community and provide attribution to the Stack Overflow community within ChatGPT.”. 

Translated from corporate lingo – the partnership will allow OpenAI to access the years and years of StackOverflow’s community contributions to train its AI model. Many users are unhappy with their answers being used to train AI and have started deleting them.

Some users have shared emails they got from StackOverflow, which banned them from the site for seven days because deleting contributed content causes “a lot of disruption” and warns them against further deletion. As much as the users are angry about it and claim they have the right to manage the content they created, StackOverflow’s Terms of Service contain a clause that states they have irrevocable ownership of all content members provide. 

The public announcement of the partnership does mention that it will enable ChatGP to provide attribution to the Stack Overflow community. Still, long-time StackOverflow users doubt the developer community’s sincerity regarding AI, as they have already changed their minds. 

For the last two years, StackOverflow has been trying to downplay the significance of AI tools and prove their supremacy in providing knowledge to developers compared to ChatGPT – they have even launched their own AI product, OverflowAI, in an attempt to counteract developers flocking to get instant answers from ChatGPT instead of searching on StackOverflow.

They have started praising the power of AI tools lately and a new set of new integrations and capabilities between Stack Overflow and OpenAI have been announced as part of this partnership that will be available in the first half of 2024. 

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The results of the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2023 are in!

This year, the survey included questions about the usage of AI/ML tools, and 70% of more than 90,000 respondents use or plan to use AI tools in their development process.

More precisely, 44% of them use AI tools in their development process now, and 26% plan to soon. Those learning to code are more likely than professional programmers to operate or use AI tools (82% vs. 70%). When asked about the specific AI tool they use, it turned out that most developers use the two most popular tools: 83% of them use ChatGPT, and 56% use GitHub Copilot.

Developers turn to AI tools to increase productivity (32.81%), speed up learning (25.15%), and become more efficient (24.96%). When asked how AI tools would evolve their workflow over the next year, 77% of developers said AI would change how they write code, and 75% of them feel the same about debugging.

While they use it, developers don’t trust the accuracy of AI tools – of those using or planning to use AI tools, only 3% highly trust the accuracy they provide, and twice as many (6%) highly distrust them.

Developer profile

Regarding developer education, most professionals obtained a bachelor’s degree (47%), while a quarter received a master’s degree (26%). More than half of developers learning to code are between 18 and 24, so it stands to reason that they’re more likely not to have a degree.

The survey shows that learning to code from online resources has increased from 70% to 80% compared to the 2022 survey. Respondents under 18 are the most likely to choose resources (e.g., videos, blogs, forums) to learn online. Respondents aged 25 to 34 were the highest age group to study online courses or certifications (52%) but still participated more, thanks to traditional schools (55%).

When it comes to the types of developers, more precisely about their roles, full-stack developers make up the majority of the respondents at 33.48%, followed by back-end developers at 17.88%, front-end developers are at 6.6%, and those who develop desktop or enterprise applications at 5.08%, and mobile developers at 3,38%.

JavaScript is the most-used language for 11 years in a row

Several technologies moved up this year (Bash/Shell, C, Ruby, Perl, and Erlang), and two moved up two spots (Elixir and Lisp). The big mover, gaining seven places in 2022, was Lua, an embeddable scripting language. The top three technologies for professional developers are the same as last year—JavaScript, HTML/CSS, and SQL. But it’s a different picture for those learning to code. HTML/CSS and JavaScript are almost tied as the most popular languages for people learning to code.

Student developers use Python more than SQL (59% vs. 37%), while professional developers report using SQL more than Python (52% vs. 45%). Compared to experienced programmers, those learning to code are more likely to use Java (37% vs. 31%), C++ (32% vs. 20%), and C (32% vs. 17%).

On the other hand, 47,883 people in the survey answered questions on what technologies are paid the most. Zig took first place with an annual salary of $103,611, Erlang with $99,492, and F# worth $99,311. Interestingly, Ruby came in fourth place with $98.522.

Namely, according to the survey, work in Python is paid 78.331 dollars, and for other popular languages, the statistics look like this:

• C# – 74.963;
• C++ – 74.963;
• SQL – 74.963;
• JavaScript – 74.034;
• Java – 72.701;
• HTML/CSS – 70.148;
• PHP – 58.899.

Developers resist returning to the office

For all respondents this year, we see a slight increase in “Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed” and an equal-sized decrease in full-time students (1 percentage point) compared to last year and other employment statuses changing less than that. The costs of investing in oneself have risen with inflation in 2023, but more is needed to sway many from the opportunity to level up their developer skills.

The most popular topic in the IT industry is the work environment. Hybrid is here to stay for larger organizations; over half of the employees in 5,000+ organizations are hybrid. The smaller organizations are most likely to be in-person, with one out of five organizations with fewer than 20 people reporting being in-person. More developers are working in person this year than last (+2%). Return-to-office initiatives aside, coding easily lends itself to fully remote work, and one-third or more of all organization sizes are still fully remote.

On the other hand, the most crucial topic concerns salaries in the IT industry. Almost 47,000 people completed this segment of the survey. Quite expectedly, senior and engineering positions occupy the very top of the list regarding salary.

70% of developers code outside of work

Regarding other popular positions, back-end developers have an average median annual salary of $76,034, while full-stack developers earn $71,140. Mobile developers earn $68,192, while front-end developer positions earn $59,970. Interestingly, most professional programmers also code outside of work and do it as a hobby, even 70% of them.

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey is based on a survey of 89,184 software developers from 185 countries worldwide.

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