Developer Satisfaction Survey/2024/Demographics
📖 Developer Satisfaction 2024 Report
👥 Demographics
edittl;dr
# Functional roles
We asked survey takers about their functional roles in the Wikimedia developer community.
- For non-staff volunteers, we asked: “What are your volunteer role(s) in the Wikimedia developer community?”
- For WMF and affiliate staff, we asked: “What are your role(s) as a Wikimedia or Chapter/Affiliate staff member (not as a volunteer)?”
- For WMF or affiliate staff who also volunteer, we asked both questions.
Functional roles are not mutually exclusive. Respondents were able to select multiple functional roles.
# Roles and role combinations
This is the first year we’ve combined the Developer Satisfaction Survey and the Wikimedia Cloud Services survey. This may account for the 13% of respondents who selected “Tool developer” as their sole role. Again, functional roles are not mutually exclusive.
| Role / Role Combinations | N | % |
|---|---|---|
| Tool Dev only | 22 | 13% |
| MediaWiki Core Dev only | 20 | 12% |
| Tool Dev & Gadget Dev | 19 | 11% |
| MediaWiki Core Dev, Tool Dev, & Gadget Dev | 11 | 6% |
| All other roles / role combinations | 99 | 58% |
| Total | 171 | 100% |
The most common role for WMF and affiliate staff respondents was MediaWiki Core Dev.
| Role |
Staff roles of WMF and Affiliate staff respondents | |
|---|---|---|
| N | % | |
| MediaWiki Core Dev | 38 | 56% |
| Tool Dev (developer or maintainer) | 15 | 22% |
| SRE Infrastructure Engineer | 15 | 22% |
| Service/API Dev | 10 | 15% |
| Other roles (Data Engineer, Gadget Dev, MediaWiki Extension Dev, Test Engineer, and/or Other; aggregated for privacy) | 19 | 28% |
| No response provided | 3 | 4% |
| Total | 68 | 100% |
Meanwhile, the most common volunteer role was Tool Dev (developer or maintainer).
| Role |
Volunteer roles of non-staff and staff respondents | |
|---|---|---|
| N | % | |
| Tool Dev (developer or maintainer) | 74 | 65% |
| Gadget Dev (incl. on-wiki tooling dev) | 61 | 53% |
| MediaWiki Core Dev | 38 | 33% |
| MediaWiki Extension Dev | 27 | 23% |
| Service/API Dev | 14 | 12% |
| Other | 9 | 8% |
| Data Engineer | 8 | 7% |
| SRE Infrastructure Engineer | 8 | 7% |
| Test Engineer | 6 | 5% |
| Total | 116 | 100% |
The most common role pairing among survey respondents was gadget developer + tool developer.
Additional common pairings included:
- Tool dev + MediaWiki Core Dev
- MediaWiki Core Dev + Gadget Dev
# Tenure
We asked survey takers, “For how many years have you been involved in the Wikimedia developer community in any role?”
The majority of respondents had 10 or fewer years of tenure.
| Tenure | N | % |
|---|---|---|
| 3 or fewer years | 53 | 32% |
| 4–9 years | 55 | 33% |
| 10+ years | 58 | 35% |
| Total | 166 | 100% |
# Tenure×Functional roles
We compared functional roles between two tenure buckets:
- respondents with 0-3 years tenure
- respondents with 4+ years tenure
The group of respondents with 4+ years tenure had higher percentages of tool developer, MediaWiki Core developers, and MediaWiki Extension developers.
For all other roles, both tenure groups had similar percentages or else the Ns were too small to make meaningful comparisons.
# Gender
We asked survey takers, “How would you describe your gender identity?” Categories are not mutually exclusive. Respondents were able to select multiple gender identities if applicable.
Of those who answered the question:
- the majority (77%) identified as man or male
- 9% said they preferred not to provide their gender identity
- 8% identified as woman or female
- 6% identified as nonbinary, genderqueer, and/or transgender
# Language
We asked survey takers, “Is English your first or primary language?”
The majority of respondents (63%) said that English is not their first or primary language.
For affiliate staff and non-staff volunteers, the majority reported that English was not their first or primary language. For Wikimedia Foundation staff, about half (49%) reported that English is their first or primary language.
For respondents who said that English was not their first or primary language, we asked, “What is your first, or native language, or what language are you most fluent in?”
Respondents reported speaking a wide variety of first, native, or most-fluent languages: 32 languages in total. Of these, the most common first languages were German and French, followed by Chinese and Dutch.
# Region
We asked survey takers, “In what region do you primarily live?”
The majority of respondents (74%) reported living in the Northern & Western Europe region; the Central & Eastern Europe & Central Asia region; or the North America region.
