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What percentage of full stack developers in Silicon Valley are freelance/contract workers? What percentage are permanent/full-time employees?
Hello! It is my pleasure to respond to your query in providing you with information on full stack developers in Silicon Valley. We’ll begin with some general information on these developers – both globally and in the US. Then, we’ll look at California and Silicon Valley specifically, and end with an estimate on the percentage of full-time vs freelance full stack developers.
FULL STACK DEVELOPERS: OVERVIEW (GLOBAL & US)
According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2016, there are about 16 million developers in the world today. This survey included responses from over 56,000 coders in 173 countries, and we’ll talk a little bit about those survey results (global and US-specific) next.
• 28% = Full Stack Web Developers
• 12.2% = Back-End Web Developers
• 8.4% = Mobile Developers
• 6.9% = Desktop Developers
• 5.8% = Front-End Web Developers
• 3% = Enterprise Level Services Developers
• 2.6% = Embedded Application Developers
• 0.1% = Machine Learning Developers
They report that, “On average, full-stack developers are comfortable coding with 5 to 6 major languages or frameworks (vs 4 for everyone else)”. The top five (5) most popular technologies for full stack developers include:
• 85.3% = JavaScript
• 58.9% = SQL
• 37.3% = C#
• 35.3% = PHP
• 32.2% = Angular
• 23% = JavaScript, PHP, SQL
• 21.7% = C#, JavaScript, SQL
• 20.6% = C#, JavaScript, SQL Server
• 19.2% = JavaScript, SQL, SQL Server
The top three (3) development environments for full stack developers included: Visual Studio (38.6%), Sublime Text (37.1%), and Notepad++ (35.8%). The top four (4) desktop operating systems included: Mac OS X (26.2%), Windows 7 (22.5%), Linus (21.7%), and Windows 10 (20.8%).
Globally, the average developer age is 29.6 years old, with the median age being 27 years old. The largest percentage of developers was 20 – 29 years old. In the United States, the average developer age was 32, which was the oldest of any country surveyed. Globally, the largest percentage of developers have between two (2) and five (5) years of experience, with the average developer having about 6.5 years of programming or IT experience. Worldwide, the “median full-stack developer has 8 years’ experience”.
The largest majority of developers worldwide, in the US, and in Silicon Valley are male. Globally, 92.8 % are male. Only 4.9% of female developers are full stack web developers globally. FUSION.net reports that the numbers of males increased by 0.7% from 2015 to 2016, while the numbers of females decreased 0.9% between 2015 and 2016.
Education-wise, 69.1% of developers identify as “self-taught” to some degree, while 43.9% say they only received on-the-job training. An additional 63% have a BS, BA, or Master’s degree in Computer Science (or a related field).
• Cloud ($105,000)
• React ($105,000)
• Redis ($105,000)
• C# ($95,000)
• JavaScript ($95,000)
• Ruby ($95,000)
The average salary for full stack web developers in the United States is $100,273. Globally, the average salary-per-employment status is as follows:
• Employed full-time = $98,949
• Freelance/contractor = $92,311
• Self-employed = $82,293
CodingDojo reports that full stack developers in San Francisco average $146,000 annually, while the same positions in Los Angeles average $115,000.
• 65.6% = Salary
• 52.8% = Work-Life Balance
• 44.2% = Company Culture
• 41.3% = Quality of Colleagues
• 39.2% = Flexible Work Hours
About 34% of developers in the United States work remotely at least part-time. Just over 48% rarely work remotely. Those who most often work remotely have the highest years of experience.
Next, let’s look at California’s and Silicon Valley’s full stack developer community in more depth.
FULL STACK DEVELOPERS: OVERVIEW (CALIFORNIA & SILICON VALLEY)
According to Paysa, full stack developers in the US can expect to earn a base salary (on average) of $82,800, with 82% of job postings requiring knowledge of JavaScript. They also report that “men outnumber women by 8 to 1,” and that 47% of employees are White. Additionally, they report that 50% of job postings for these positions do not require a college degree.
Another article by Paysa reports on the most valuable tech skills for Silicon Valley, as well as related information. This is summarized for you below.
• High-performance computing (HPC) = $194,000
• Natural language processing (NLP) = $194,000
• Recommender Systems = $182,000
• Scalability = $173,000
• Large Scale Systems = $173,000
Less-common skills (like the top two listed above) commanded much higher salaries overall. They report that, “AWL was one of the lower compensated skills, but was also the highest in demand across all job postings”. Java and JavaScript were the most popular skills needed in this region.
According to CIO, “Between 2014 and 2015, California added nearly 59,500 technology jobs – the most of any state in the nation. The state’s tech payroll dwarfs its nearest competitors, reaching a towering sum totaling more than $171 billion. At the same time, California is home to more than 50,000 technology establishments, making up 8.2 percent of the state’s entire private sector workforce.”
Now, let’s get to the meat of your question – about how many full stack developers in Silicon Valley are full-time employees and how many are contract/freelance developers.
PERCENTAGE OF FULL STACK DEVELOPERS: FULL-TIME VS FREELANCE
The Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2016 includes a section on employment status which indicates how Full Stack Developers in the United States are employed. According to the survey results:
• 67.8% = employed full-time
• 7.1% = freelancer/contractor
• 4.3% = self-employed
• 12.6% = student
• 3.5% = employed part-time
• 1.8% = other employment status
• 0.8% = prefers not to disclose
• 0.2% = retired
We can estimate that AT LEAST the same percentage of full-time vs freelancer employees can be found in Silicon Valley. However, since this region is one of the most popular in the country for this type of developer – and there are a huge number of companies in this area hiring these positions, we can safely assume that a larger percentage of those in Silicon Valley are full-time employees rather than freelancers. No additional figures can be found to verify this (despite a deep dive), however, as that information does not appear to be publicly tracked for this particular region.
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SUMMARY
About 28% of developers world-wide are full stack web developers, with the large majority (over 92% being male). The average salary for full stack web developers in the United States is $100,273. Globally, the average salary-per-employment status is as follows: Employed full-time = $98,949, Freelance/contractor = $92,311, and Self-employed = $82,293.
In the US, nearly 68% of full stack developers are employed full-time, while just over 7% are employed as freelancers/contractors, and just over 4% are self-employed developers. It can be assumed that AT LEAST the same percentage of full-time vs freelancer employees can be found in Silicon Valley. However, since this region is one of the most popular in the country for this type of developer – and there are a huge number of companies in this area hiring these positions, we can safely assume that a larger percentage of those in Silicon Valley are full-time employees rather than freelancers.
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Thank you again for your question, and I hope this information gives you what you need. Please contact Wonder again for any other questions you may have!