Demand for DevOps experts skyrocketed as organisations of all sizes shifted to remote working in 2020, but over four in ten HR professionals (43%) admitted they will struggle to find qualified DevOps for their tech teams this year.
This finding saw DevOps roles leapfrog back-end and full-stack developers as the hardest positions to fill.
48% of companies surveyed by code training platform CodinGame said their developers worked away from the office full-time in 2020, compared to just 4% in 2019.
The move away from physical presence at company offices brought increased needs for businesses to manage cloud infrastructures or migrate operations to the cloud during the pandemic.
When asked about hiring methods, it was found that over half (52%) of developers recruited in 2020 were interviewed and appointed remotely, as tech recruiters turned to virtual interviews.
However, only 15% of developers, and one in four HR professionals, declared a preference for interviews conducted over video conferencing software.
In addition, the study suggests that tech telecommuting trends could falter once Covid-19 is beaten, with just 23% of developers stating that they would prefer to work remotely full-time.
Job prospects in 2021
When CodinGame asked programmers how easy they thought it would be to change jobs in 2021, on a scale from 1-10, confidence levels gave an average score of 7, the same as in 2020.
Regarding programming languages, JavaScript was revealed to still be the most sought after by recruiters, followed by Java and Python. Six in 10 (60%) recruiters said that they have strong demand for these three languages.
There also seems to be a shift away from developers with formal qualifications, with 80% of HR professionals stating they recruited developers who are self taught, and didn’t learn to code at school or university.
Almost a quarter (24%) of recruiters, meanwhile, said they regularly hire developers without a formal qualification in programming.
How to ensure faster, quality code to ease the development process
“Our latest report on the developer profession highlights the rise of telecommuting and virtual hiring in 2020 and the strong demand for DevOps experts as businesses adapted to working in the cloud,” said Aude Barral, co-founder of CodinGame.
“Although Covid has largely been behind this shift, it will be interesting to see if these trends continue in 2021.
“We’ve also seen more tech recruiters hiring developers who haven’t followed the traditional academic route. A computer science degree is no longer a must-have if you want a career as a programmer.
“With the wealth of online and offline resources available to everyone, coders of all levels of technical competence can improve their programming skills, opening up job opportunities in the booming tech sector.”
CodinGame surveyed over 15,000 developers and HR professionals from around the world, from October 2020 to December 2020. The full report can be found here.
