Globally, there are 19 million software developers and 8.7 million mobile app developers. According to statistics, 90% of them are males and 69% of all developers are partly self-taught. 43% of developers have either a BA or BS in computer science or a related field. 2% of developers have a PhD.
91% of them are “gainfully employed” (employed full-time, self-employed, or freelance). Most of them chose to work remotely because of some workplace gripes like unrealistic expectations, poor documentation, unspecific requirements, corporate policies and interacting with stupid people. It is said that remote developers love their job more than other developers.
After an interview with Eric Wroolie (Overpass owner and a developer for almost 18 years), it’s easy to see that the survey is true and I understood why most of them chose to work remotely. He stated: “I thought that was risky since I put all my future in the hands of someone else. As a contractor and self-employed person, I control my own education and fate.” And that’s something we can all agree with.
Aside from building and developing an app or software, developers also need to know how to market their apps to survive the competition and gain revenue. The road to success for them is never easy because of stumbling blocks along the way. Eric said “Ear Spy was a big risk and cost me a lot of money. In fact, every app we’ve done has costed me a lot. Many don’t do well, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.” So I was tempted to ask the golden question “So what makes you feel fulfilled as a developer?” and he replied: “So, I feel fulfilled when we can create good software that people use.”
I suddenly thought of a friend who said she’s so thankful to developers who worked hard to code just to give us apps and games that we enjoy using everyday as well as the softwares and solutions that companies utilize. I started to imagine, what if developers don’t exist then we have missed a lot. I hope that this article gives you a glimpse of what developers are and be grateful that they’re here to work until their fingers bleed. (Now, that’s just a figure of speech).
Kudos to sir Eric Wroolie, Calvin Ferrando and all the developers out there!
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Sources:
http://appindex.com/app-development/mobile-app-developer-statistics-roundup/
http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2016#work
http://www.visionmobile.com/product/developer-economics-state-of-the-developer-nation-q3-2015/