Study Finds 76% of Companies Plan to Hire More Tech Talent in 2015, Software and Data Science Are in Highest Demand, Diversity Shows Signs of Progress from HackerRank’s Hacker Hiring Trends Report

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (June 11, 2015) - New research into tech talent trends from HackerRank , the platform connecting skilled programmers to top technical positions globally, reveals insights relevant for candidates looking to refine skills as well as companies seeking to rethink their hiring practices in the midst of a changing landscape.

The HackerHiringTrends (HHT) Report, conducted by HackerRank in March 2015 among 125 hiring managers in mid to large-size businesses in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific Region and the Middle East, explored many factors of technical hiring and captured prevailing hiring gaps globally.

When asked what jobs are the hardest to fill:
- 41 percent of hiring managers said software engineers
- 28 percent data scientists
- 9 percent mobile Android developers
- 6 percent Linux system admins
- 4.88 percent QA / test engineers
- 4.88 percent iOS mobile developers
- 4.88 percent UI/UX engineers
- 1 percent network architects 

When asked what positions they’re actively hiring for:
- 94 percent of hiring managers said software developers
- 68 percent user interface developers
- 60 percent quality assurance engineers 

When asked what languages are the most important to know:
- 69 percent of hiring managers said Java
- 60 percent JavaScript
- 50 percent Python
- 42 percent C++
- 38 percent C#
- 37 percent SQL
- 4 percent Swift

“As software eats many different worlds beyond Silicon Valley such as retail, finance and even venture capital, tech hiring continues to boom. The demand is there and if you are a software engineer or data scientist you’re the hottest commodity,” commented Vivek Ravisankar, CEO and cofounder of HackerRank . “We’re also seeing more hiring managers look for developers with Java and JavaScript coding language skills and believe that learning those languages will help developers be more attractive to prospective employers.”

When asked about hiring practices for specific groups:
- 43 percent of hiring managers were aware of special practices designed to help hire women
- 32 percent knew of practices for minorities
- 14 percent said they are aware of special initiatives aimed at lesbian, gay and bisexual candidates 

When asked about the most effective way of sourcing candidates:
- 41 percent employee referrals
- 18  percent social media
- 12 percent job listings
- 11 percent hiring agencies
- 7 percent campus recruiting
- 7 percent hackathons
- 3 percent partner referrals
- 1 percent venture capitalists

Furthermore, the behavior of candidate’s themselves surprised many hiring managers. Increased salary negotiations, difficulty in attracting top notch talent, candidate attitude, push-back in the interview process and even misleading resumes are all cited as commonly surprising occurrences in today’s tech talent market.  

Survey methodology
This HHT Report was conducted online by Survey Monkey from March 9-31, 2015 among 125 hiring managers in North America, Asia-Pacific Region, Europe and the Middle East. All sample surveys and polls are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments.  

For complete survey methodology, please contact maggie@vscconsulting.com .  

About HackerRank
HackerRank is a technical talent platform used by programmers to hone their coding skills and by companies to recruit tech talent. Co-founded in 2012 by Vivek Ravisankar and Harishankaran Karunanidhi, HackerRank is a Y Combinator graduate with over 1M developers and over 1,000 companies as customers. Learn more at hackerrank.com

Contact Information

Maggie Philbin

Account Manager

VSCpr on behalf of HackerRank

Contact via E-mail