According to a DigitalOcean survey, the Great Resignation and developer talent shortage trends are strengthening in India. As much as 32 per cent of those who have been working for more than a year have started a new job in the past year, and 44 per cent of them are considering leaving or may consider leaving their job this year, the survey found.

“Attracting and retaining developer talent is evolving rapidly and companies need to adapt to the new landscape.Businesses need to better understand developers and give them the tools, benefits, and pay they need to be successful — business survival in the digital era depends on it,” said Gabe Monroy, Chief Product Officer at DigitalOcean. 

The report identified compensation and desire for fully remote or more flexible work environments as the top reasons for developer attrition. The Current Survey asked over 2,500 respondents (across 94 countries) including front end, back end, and full stack developers, system administrators, DevOps specialists, and more.

Key findings

• 64% of those with less than a year’s experience, and 32% of those with 1-5 years experience, left their jobs recently. By comparison, only 21% with more than 15 years of experience have done so. 
• Motivations for leaving jobs are consistent among both those who have already left and those considering leaving, with compensation, remote or flexible work environments, and better benefits being the top factors that motivate people to leave jobs, especially for younger developers.
• 18% of respondents cited lack of time and resources to work on projects is also a key challenge, and 11% mention team members leaving as a challenge, demonstrating that the developer talent shortage is impacting even those who stay in their roles.
• 8% of developers who have both left their job and who are looking to leave are doing so to start their own companies.
• 56% of respondents from India have participated in open source projects in the past year, and 71% of those respondents say their participation has increased during the pandemic.

• Despite the buzz around blockchain and Web3 technologies, 67% of developers do not use blockchain/Web3 yet. 
• Feelings in India are more favourable towards low-code and no-code tools: 23% say they make their job easier, and 18% say they allow them to focus on more important tasks. Just 15% say these tools are overhyped, compared to 21% in the total sample.
• Usage of containers and serverless architecture is slightly lower in India than overall, with 55% saying they use containers, container orchestration systems, and microservices, compared to 68% of all respondents. 32% are using serverless architecture, compared to 44% in total.
• A slightly higher percent in India are using or plan to use blockchain technologies and automation (AI/ML). 55% of those in India compared to 33% in the total sample are already using blockchain technology. Additionally, 13% of India respondents believe they will use open source for blockchain technologies next year, compared to 7% of total respondents. 68% are using automation compared to 57% in the total sample.