In this week’s roundup from OfferZen, we look at AI’s popularity among developers and its implications for technical assessments, why Python is the most wanted language in 2023 and what Python developers earn in South Africa.
AI dominates as South Africa’s most-promising industry
Developers' most promising industry for 2023
AI’s rapid advances over the past year have dominated the headlines following the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT. It should come as no surprise that AI dominates the list of most promising industries: Half of developers list it as their top industry for 2023.
It’s easy to see why AI has captured their attention:
- Opportunities for creativity and innovation: AI enables developers to explore new and creative possibilities in software development by automating repetitive tasks, optimising processes, and suggesting solutions to problems. This frees up developers to focus on more creative and strategic aspects of their work.
- Growth opportunities: AI is continuously evolving, providing developers with opportunities to learn and grow their skills. Numerous resources are available for developers to gain expertise in AI and machine learning.
- Career opportunities: The demand for AI expertise is high, and developers with AI skills are in great demand. This can lead to attractive career opportunities, higher salaries, and job security.
Despite their interest in AI, less than 1 in 3 developers worked with an AI tool as part of their role or personal projects.
AI has shaken up traditional ways of doing technical assessments
This year we saw tech companies who are still actively hiring, facing budget constraints or working with a smaller recruitment team. Complicating matters further is the rise of AI and its impact on tech assessments.
As LLMs (Large Language Models) become more sophisticated and widely used by developers in their day-to-day work, they become more widely used as a tool during assessments.
Hiring teams need to have a solid response to developments in AI if they want to future-proof their technical assessments. And ensure they are providing an excellent candidate experience along the way.
Hung Lee, Curator for Recruiting Brainfood, Matthias Schmeißer (Global Director of Talent Acquisition at emnify) and Ilya Sakharov (CTO at Codility) unpacked how companies can best leverage technical assessments and AI as part of their hiring strategy.
Here are the key takeaways to future-proof your hiring process:
- When responding to developments in AI, you can either work against AI (a reactive approach) or work with AI (the proactive approach).
- Leverage AI as part of your hiring process means you will test candidates’ ability to leverage LLMs and follow a skills-based hiring approach.
- To provide a good candidate experience: Pitch the opportunity to candidates before sending an assessment, prepare them thoroughly on what to expect, and give comprehensive feedback.
Python remains South Africa's most-wanted language
Software developers' most-wanted programming languages
Python remains South Africa’s most-wanted programming language in 2023, ahead of Microsoft-backed TypeScript and C#.
If you’re interested in the field of AI, then it’s easy to see why Python leads the way:
Python remains the go-to language for most AI and machine learning projects.
A major reason is its large ecosystem of libraries and frameworks, including TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, and Keras, that make it easy to develop and deploy AI models.
Python skills are also a great asset in your job search, even if you’re not looking to work in AI just yet. In fact, there’s a healthy demand for developers with Python experience.
Number of roles requiring this skill on OfferZen
There are 110 open roles on OfferZen this week requiring some experience with Python, making it the fifth most in-demand skill on the platform.
Here’s what it costs to hire a Python developer
Average Python Developer Salaries in 2023
Average Salary by Years Experience, showing 25th and 75th percentiles
Want to know what Python developers earn in South Africa? We gathered data from 2650 developers to better understand what Python developers can expect to earn over the course of their careers.