JetBrains’ State of Developer Ecosystem 2025 (Category DevEx)

I finally got around to reading JetBrains’ annual survey report. It is among the reports I follow for insights on developer productivity and AI’s effects; I wrote about that collection here. These are the points I found interesting in JetBrains’ results. They are also worth comparing with last year’s report.

🤖 AI is the new norm 85% of developers regularly use AI tools, compared with around 80% a year earlier. 62% use at least one AI coding assistant, while 15% still work without AI. 68% expect AI knowledge to become an employer requirement soon. Developers readily delegate routine tasks, such as boilerplate generation, translation between languages and automatic documentation, but prefer handling creative and complex work themselves. Their main concerns are inconsistent code quality, security and privacy risks, and possible deterioration of their own skills.

⚙️ Languages and technologies TypeScript continues growing rapidly and joins Rust and Go among the three most promising languages of 2025; Python occupied Go’s place in 2024. Go and Rust lead developers’ choices for the next language to learn. PHP, Ruby and Objective-C continue to lose popularity. Scala again stands out for high salaries: 38% of the highest earners use it, although only 2% of programmers name it as their primary language.

📊 Productivity and DX In 2024, companies focused on technical efficiency measures such as build speed, deployment and recovery time. In 2025, attention shifted toward overall productivity and developer experience. Tools and processes still matter, but so do communication, clear goals and team feedback. 66% of engineers do not believe current KPIs reflect their real contribution. Leaders still want less technical debt and better collaboration, while developers value clear tasks and constructive feedback. Measures of success need rethinking.

🌍 The market and everyday reality Views of the labor market vary widely: 57% of developers in Japan consider it favorable, while 66% in Canada report difficulties. Newcomers have it harder: 61% of juniors call the market difficult, compared with 54% of seniors. Daily problems also change with experience, shifting from purely technical tasks to coordination issues such as context switching. Despite the challenges, programmers love their work: 52% code for pleasure in their free time. 57% do so with music, while 25% prefer silence. And one constant remains: developers love cats just as much as dogs 😸🐶.

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