If I asked you to design a survey targeted at developers, you might not immediately think of a question like this one:
The reason why this chart from last year's State of Devs survey results talks about world issues instead of JavaScript frameworks and AI agents is that the State of Devs is about everything except programming: career, workplace, health, hobbies, and yes even political worldview.
And since the second-ever edition of survey is now open (go take it!), I wanted to take a second to talk about a few of the new questions this year.
Job & Career Security
It's no secret that there's a lot of uncertainty in the developer job market right now. But that fear and doubt can often be hard to admit in person, as we all want to see ourselves as the mythical 10x developer who's empowered by AI, and not threatened by it.
That's why I wanted to try and capture overall sentiment about job security with this new question:
As well as a similar one that asks not only if respondents see themselves switching jobs, but also being forced to switch careers.
Stress & Mental State
I also wanted to just check up on developers. Are we doing OK? Or are we producing more code then ever while secretely feeling stressed out and miserable?
All About AI
Many of you are no doubt sick of hearing about AI, but leaving it out of the survey just felt wrong when it's such an omnipresent concern.
And as hard as it is to boil such a complex topic down to a single good/bad axis, I decided to try just to see what kind of results we get–and how they evolve over time:
And with all the talk of “tokenmaxxing” and companies pushing AI down their employee's throat whether they want it or not, I'm personally very curious to see the answers to this question:
Worldview
Finally, we have the Worldview section that's all about sharing your deepest thoughts and emotions:
This is your one chance to set aside your usual stoicism and positive attitude and let loose! Nobody will judge you here!
And speaking of being judged, this is another thing I've been curious about:
Take the Survey!
Most other developer surveys are run by large companies or agencies that have to worry about not offending any clients, customers, investors, etc. Which is why they rarely venture into any remotely political or controversial topics.
But the State of Devs is different: it's run by Devographics, which is just one guy (me!). And as much as I depend on sponsors to put food on the table, at the end of the day I'm still going to try and find out the answers to the most interesting questions, otherwise what's the point?
So if you want to support my work, or just help take the pulse of the developer community, then go take the survey and together let's find out how developers are really feeling in 2026!
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