Week in Review: Is AI affecting your developer retention?

In this week’s roundup from OfferZen, we give you a sneak peek at data from our latest Dev Nation Survey, explore how bad management wrecks developer retention, and what it costs to hire Kotlin developers.

Exclusive Dev Nation sneak peek: Boost your dev retention with more opportunities to work with AI

AI’s rapid and ongoing developments are making it harder for companies and developers to ignore its impact on software development. Generative AI tools like Co-pilot and ChatGPT are helping developers write and debug basic code. As a result, StackOverflow has suffered traffic losses leading to the company laying off 28% of its staff this week.

But how is the South African tech community using AI? And is there a correlation between using AI as part of their role and dev retention? Let’s take a look at incoming data from our latest Dev Nation survey.

When looking at what makes developers stay or leave their roles, our data shows that growth opportunities are one of the most important factors:

Developers' reasons for staying in a role

Developers' reasons for leaving a role

What do growth opportunities actually mean for developers? The data shows it includes challenging projects and the opportunity to work with new tools:

Developers' top factors for career growth

And that’s where AI comes in: Despite being South African developers’ most promising industry for 2023, nearly half of developers haven’t worked with an AI API in the past year:

"Have you used any AI APIs in the last year?"

AI is undoubtedly having an enormous impact on software development and how South African developers approach finding solutions to technical problems. Experience with AI is only going to grow in importance for them. That makes working with it a crucial part of their career development.

Bad management could be killing your dev retention

The incoming data also shows that poor management is another key factor in driving devs away.

To help build and retain a thriving team as a tech leaders, we’ve put together a report with insights and data from the tech community on:

• Why your management quality matters
• What managers should avoid
• What makes a great manager

Tweet of the week

Here’s what it costs to hire a Kotlin developer in South Africa

Want to know what Kotlin developers earn in South Africa? We gathered data from 204 developers to better understand what developers can expect to earn over the course of their careers.

How to measure and evaluate developer productivity

Navigating the intricacies of growing a tech team is tough. Fairly evaluating how productive that team is might be be even tougher. So how do you make sure your team is focusing on things that move the needle without alienating your team members?

Join us for an online conversation with OfferZen CEO Philip Joubert as we talk developer productivity in a forum for tech leads to collaborate and share knowledge.