Poll Results: Software by Rob Reader Demographics

For those who are interested, here are the results of the four poll questions I’ve posted over the past for months (with commentary and my response to each):

Are you a...

• Software Developer - 49%
• Technical/Team Lead - 31%
• Manager - 11%
• Other - 9%

Commentary: 80% of my readers are developers or tech leads?! Gasp! Choke!

I’m kidding - no surprises here. I am curious what the “other” category consists of - I can only assume DBAs, network and sys admins, helpdesk, and QA folk.

For those who are curious, I marked myself as a Software Developer.

What is your main programming language?

• A .NET language - 36%
• Java - 22%
• C/C++ - 14%
• Other - 12%
• PHP - 7%
• Ruby - 5%
• Perl - 3%

Commentary: I purposefully left this question ambiguous so people could choose their favorite language or the language they use the most.

72% of readers use enterprise languages such as .NET, Java, and C/C++, 15% use scripting languages, and 12% fall into “other.” I realized after I posted that I left out VB5/6…sorry about that.

For myself, I selected “A .NET laguage.”

How old are you?

• 20-29 - 51%
• 30-39 - 38%
• 40-49 - 8%
• 50-59 - 2%
• Under 20 or over 60 - 1%

Commentary: I probably shouldn’t be, but I was shocked that 89% of my readers are 20-39 years old. I guess software development coupled with reading a blog really narrows the field to that age group. Way to break the mold 40, 50 and 60 year olds!

I marked 30-39.

What is your highest level of education?

• Bachelor’s Degree - 54%
• Master’s Degree - 24%
• Up to a high school diploma - 20%
• PhD or higher - 2%

Commentary: A pretty even distribution with Bachelor’s earners (myself included) at slightly more than half the readership.

About Me: My name is Rob Walling and I'm a software developer living and working in Boston. I write about hiring, managing, and motivating software developers, in addition to random outbursts on improving development skills and software startups.

My consulting firm, The Numa Group, performs .NET development for clients throughout the United States. If you are in need of a .NET developer or architect, drop me a line.

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