What I learned from Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020
Tags: webdev, beginners, devjournal
Published: 2021-03-19 20:28:48

As someone about to graduate from university and start my career, I have much interest in what's trending at the moment. Luckily, Stack Overflow has done me a favor in not only explaining what's up but with visualization. Stack Overflow takes [surveys](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020) every year from their users to see who their viewers are, where they reside, and what they do. Being one of the most visited sites for software developers, the census from this site can be of great use for people like me. With this in mind, I want to share what I, a beginner of the web-dev community, learned from the survey.

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[1.](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#experience) Many have started their coding-life when they were 14-15 years old. 
As for someone from South Korea, this was very shocking and discouraging on some points, since most mandatory-level school students in Korea don't get to even see a single line of "code" unless they attend an IT school. I got to think whether my life would have been easier/changed if I learned to code earlier in my life? ~~Probably not~~, but might have had an advantage when I really started to learn the language. This information made me realize that I am at a somewhat disadvantage, and to make up for it, I should do more.

[2.](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-languages-loved) Approximately 50% of people using JavaScript/HTML/CSS love their languages.
This is encouraging! I already know the gist of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and getting to know the fact that at least 50% of the people are satisfied with it helps with the effort I put in and will be putting in, in the future. What is Rust, by the way?

[3.](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-collaboration-tools) Of many collaboration tools, I HAVE TO know GitHub. 
GitHub, Slack, and Jira are the top three collaboration tools, but for developers, GitHub seems to be essential. Slack and Jira, from my experience, are basically a way to communicate with the team, while GitHub is more of a way to collaborate your projects with. Using Visual Studio, GitHub was really easy: just a few clicks then you're good! However, I do not know, confidently, how to manually change branches, init, commit, push, and pull. This is also something I should work on.

[4.](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-what-do-you-do-when-you-get-stuck) Trying to solve problems in one go might not be the best way to approach problems. 
Of course, it is good to be able to solve a problem right away. What I mean by this is trying to solve the problem in one go when I've been stuck with it for a little while. I have a tendency to focus on one thing when until I'm satisfied with what I got. Sometimes solving one error leads to ten more, and trying to solve it until it is complete might not be in the next 30 minutes.

[5.](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#work-salary-by-developer-type-united-states) Full-Stack Developer makes good money. 
Considering that majority of the survey was done to developers in the field for 5-10 years, a yearly salary of $112k is very good, in my opinion. What that pointed out the most, tho, was the salary difference in front-end ($110k), full-stack ($112k), and back-end ($120k). From my experiences in web development, I'm more inclined to work in the front-end. Would the salary and preference difference be worth it? We'll see.

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I think a Full-Stack Developer is currently in a great spot. Depending on education in the next few months/years, I would be able to decide whether to pursue a career in Full-Stack, Front-end, or even Back-end. I should continue doing what I like. It's time for me to go create some more sites.