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Software Engineering in 2025: Somewhere between “AAAAHHHH!” and “Actually, This Is Fine”

It’s the time of year where Stack Overflow and The Pragmatic Engineer release their developer surveys. These surveys gauge the temperature of the developer world and give the reader a chance to look behind the curtain of the software industry. The world has changed in the last couple of years and I thought it would be interesting to take a look across the different surveys, analyse common trends and see if anyone else feels the same as I do.

To summarise how I’m feeling: “AAAAHHHHHHHHHH… actually this is fine (and actually not the dog in the fire meme).”

Stack Overflow: A shrinking but still significant voice

Stack Overflow’s survey remains the heavyweight in terms of scale, though its reach is shrinking. In 2023, the survey had 90,000 respondents. That fell to 65,000 in 2024 and 49,000 this year. I suspect that reflects broader changes in site usage, as more people turn to AI for answers.

However, fewer responses don’t make the results irrelevant. The people who continue to use Stack Overflow could represent a more specific group, perhaps those less inclined toward AI-driven ways of working.

This theory seems to play out in the sentiment data. In 2023 and 2024, more than 70% of respondents reported a positive view of AI tools. In 2025, that number dropped to just 60%. Professionals remain slightly more positive (61%) compared to those learning to code (53%), but the overall trend is clear: enthusiasm for AI is cooling within the Stack Overflow audience.

There’s also a growing distrust: 46% of developers say they don’t trust the accuracy of AI-generated code, up from just 31% in 2024. Only a tiny sliver (around 3%) “highly trust” outputs. This is also in line with my own experience of AI, always read the output!

The Pragmatic Engineer: smaller sample, different lens

The Pragmatic Engineer survey, with around 3000 respondents, is smaller in scale but offers a slightly different perspective. While Stack Overflow has the reach, PE’s readership tends to be more engaged with industry shifts and emerging practices, so its findings often feel more forward-leaning.

Once again, AI is a central theme. Around 85% of developers say they are using or plan to use AI in their daily workflows, closely mirroring Stack Overflow’s numbers. However, given this survey’s smaller size, it gives visibility into cutting-edge shifts such as “vibe coding” and the tools behind it.

The common ground

Despite their differences, both surveys converge on one key truth: AI is no longer optional. It is central.

Both put their AI questions right at the top of the survey, and both report almost identical adoption figures. On Stack Overflow, 84% of developers are using or planning to use AI in their workflows; on The Pragmatic Engineer, it’s 85.3%. However you slice it, AI is now embedded in the daily work of most developers.

The other big agreement is around tools. VSCode continues to be the undisputed king of IDEs, but the real story is Cursor. Despite being just two years old, it has already broken into the top five most-used editors in both surveys, and ranks second on The Pragmatic Engineer. That is a staggering pace of adoption.

Even long-standing incumbents are reacting. Apple, for example, just released Xcode 26 Beta 7, which ships with a built-in Claude integration. It feels like the battle for developer mindshare is now being fought through AI-enabled IDEs.

When it comes to languages, things are more familiar but shifting at the edges. JavaScript is still the most popular language on Stack Overflow, while TypeScript leads on The Pragmatic Engineer. Python continues its upward climb, riding the wave of machine learning adoption.

Vibe coding is the elephant in the room, but both surveys agree that the majority of people that vibe code are non engineers.

The Pragmatic Engineer notes “Most respondents who mention vibe coding tools aren’t engineers. Around two thirds of those who mention Vercel v0, Bolt.new, and Lovable, are founders, director+ folks, or engineering leads. Of the remaining third, half are staff+ engineers, and the rest software engineers. This suggests that vibe coding tools might be more helpful for less hands-on folks who want to prototype something, perhaps to show to their engineering team.”

The Stack Overflow survey backs this up; “Most respondents are not vibe coding (72%), and an additional 5% are emphatic it not being part of their development workflow.”

Key takeaways

Stack Overflow and The Pragmatic Engineer paint slightly different pictures, but the underlying trends align. AI adoption is widespread, and the tools developers choose are increasingly shaped by how well they integrate it. Cursor’s rapid success is the clearest signal of how quickly the landscape can shift, forcing incumbents like Xcode and JetBrains products to adapt.

At the same time, the foundations remain stable. Web technologies still dominate, VSCode remains the default choice, and Python keeps growing in influence. What is changing most is the pace: the speed at which tools rise, fall, and evolve feels faster than ever.

All of which raises a bigger question: are annual surveys still enough? By the time the next ones roll around, today’s hot topic may already feel like legacy tech. Quarterly snapshots might give us a better picture of how quickly things are moving.

Final thoughts

It should come as no surprise that AI now dominates these surveys. I’ll admit, part of me worries that AI will become so good that engineers are no longer required.

But for now, my view is this: AI will continue lowering the barrier to entry for software engineering - and, that’s a good thing.

My view of coding hasn’t changed. Engineers are artists. The internet is our canvas. Code is our brushstroke. It’s our duty to create the experiences we want to create and if using these tools helps us to do that, then that can only be a good thing.