State of Devs 2026 results
Salaries, burnout, attitudes toward AI and work arrangements in the State of Devs 2026 survey.
The State of Devs 2026 results are out: that survey from Devographics (the folks behind State of Just About Everything). But this time it is not about frameworks and tooling. It is about everything else: mental health, money, burnout and attitudes toward AI 🫠
Around 5.5 thousand developers took part, and the picture is quite realistic:
- Salaries and regions: The global median salary was $90k/year. The US and Israel lead with a median of $175k, while in Russia, for example, it is $30k. By specialization, Frontend has a median of exactly $90k, while people who moved into AI / LLM have a median of $125k. At the same time, 46% of developers explicitly named insufficient pay as one of their main career problems.
- Burnout and management: 62% of respondents had experienced burnout, and named poor management and market instability as the main problems at work.
- AI generates code, but not happiness: Although AI writes 75% or more of the code for almost half of respondents, attitudes toward it are split almost down the middle (49% in favor, 42% against). And only 23% said that AI had a positive effect on their mental well-being.
- Beyond code: Developers name climate change as their biggest external source of anxiety, while work arrangements are among the most debated topics (hybrid wins at 41%, while fully remote work accounts for 23%).
Overall, the industry is going through an interesting period: tools help us write more and more code, but so far that has not brought greater confidence in the future or more joy in the process.