HackerEarth, the leading solutions provider to attract, interview, upskill and engage developer talent, today released its second annual developer survey report titled “Code in Progress: HackerEarth 2021 Developer Survey.” The report provides actionable insights for hiring managers, CTOs and other decision makers building and managing tech teams based on evolving technologies and interests.

The survey results include responses from 25,000+ developers across 171 countries, with women comprising more than 20% of participants. The report captures how changes in our world over the past year have impacted the tech industry and what the current programming ecosystem looks like through the perspective of student and professional developers globally including preferences, challenges and work-from-home practices.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the tech industry had to adapt on the fly. Developers and engineers remained in high demand throughout 2020 and into 2021 as companies continued their digital transformation efforts to ensure business continuity. Things have changed however with remote work being the norm for many tech employees and the task of recruiting, screening & interviewing, and nurturing developer talent becoming more competitive than ever.

“There’s no way we could have predicted all of the radical changes the pandemic brought upon the tech industry over the past year,” said Sachin Gupta, CEO of HackerEarth. “The one constant is the immense challenge facing hiring managers and CTOs responsible for assembling and nurturing tech teams in a fiercely competitive market. This year’s report is meant to help decision makers understand how code will progress and guide their strategic roadmap for hiring in 2021 and beyond.”

Key findings from the Code in Progress: HackerEarth 2021 Developer Survey include:

Excessive virtual meetings kill developer productivity and developers are least happy at enterprises 

• 22% of developers say that ‘Zoom Fatigue’ is real and directly affects their productivity.
• 18% of developers say that a ‘No Interruption’ policy when they have their headphones on helps boost productivity. To focus, student developers listen to nature sounds and professionals prefer ambient music (with classical coming in second for both).
• 68% of developers are least happy working at large enterprises vs. growth-stage startups, especially those that clock 60+ hours per week.

Rust is the programming language that most excites student developers this year. Padrino and React are top Developer Frameworks

• A majority of student developers (88%) cite Rust as the programming language they aim to master in 2021. Other languages that interest students are Lua, Groovy, and Erlang.
• A majority of experienced developers (73%) want to know more about Go.
• For top developer frameworks, a majority of students (88%) are interested in learning Padrino and experienced developers (55%) would like to excel in React.

Developers see lack of post-interview feedback as a major problem and no longer prefer onsite interviews

• Lack of feedback post-interview is a major issue in the recruitment process according to 40% of experienced developers.
• Too many rounds in the interview process (16%) and misleading job descriptions (14%) are other things about the tech hiring process that professional developers dislike.
• Remote interviewing is here to stay according to 40% of developers. 40% of professionals prefer remote interviewing tools that are equipped with video and code editors.

To find out more, including other things that developers say hinders productivity, how developers most prefer to unwind in 2021, and the employee benefits developers most care about, download the full report here.