This year's survey is now closed. Thanks for participating and stand by for results.

To participate, click here .

Windows vs. OS X. Vim vs. Emacs. Tabs vs. Spaces. Lots of questions about who you are, how you work, and how you use Stack Overflow. It's all in there. Joel wanted to include a dozen "Would you rather fight..." questions involving herds of pygmy creatures but we left those out. This year's survey is a little long. That's because we know you have a lot to say.

The survey will be open for 2 weeks.

We're looking forward to compiling and publicizing results.

  • 142
    I got stuck on the first page. It asks me tabs or spaces. What if we have our tabs set to be converted into a certain number of spaces? Technically I'm using a tab, but it's producing spaces. What to choose!?!? – animuson Feb 2 '15 at 19:03
  • 80
    @animuson 'Spaces' then. You've essentially turned your [tab] key into a keyboard shortcut. What is really missing is the 'I really just don't care' option. – Robert Cartaino Feb 2 '15 at 19:07
  • 40
    How about if you just tell me exactly how many M&M's are in the jar? – Mooseman Feb 2 '15 at 19:14
  • 38
    So who's the poor sap that actually has to sit there and count the M&M's? Intern season seems a little far off. – Servy Feb 2 '15 at 19:26
  • 154
    "I don't use source control" -> Account destroyed. – yannis Feb 2 '15 at 19:32
  • 60
    I think I spent longer counting M&Ms than the rest of the survey combined... – BradleyDotNET Feb 2 '15 at 19:44
  • 21
    No "some college" option? Seems like I'm either self-taught or graduated. – SomeKittens Feb 2 '15 at 20:08
  • 25
    @Servy, we use Price Waterhouse Coopers for all our M&M-related activities to ensure the integrity of the count. – Jaydles Feb 2 '15 at 20:23
  • 21
    It would be nice if there were an option somewhere between "Rarely" and "Once a week" for the question "How often are you contacted by recruiters?". Maybe something like "Once every few weeks" or "About once a month". – GreenGiant Feb 2 '15 at 20:42
  • 28
    "Which of the following languages or technologies have you done extensive development with in the last year" - gives the choice of "SQL" and "SQL Server". That's a bit strange. Why aren't other DBMS also listed there (Oracle, Postgres) or other procedural SQL languages (PL/SQL, PL/pgSQL) assuming that "SQL Server" is a synonym for "T-SQL" – a_horse_with_no_name Feb 2 '15 at 22:07
  • 24
    When it stopped being a stack overflow survey and turned into a stack overflow careers survey I decided I didn't want to take it from work. Now I don't want to restart from scratch on my personal computer. Odds of my actually completing it now, slightly less than that of correctly guessing the number of M&Ms in the jar. – Dan Neely Feb 2 '15 at 22:12
  • 40
    "I have never been on Stack Overflow. I just love taking surveys." – Alexis King Feb 3 '15 at 3:59
  • 38
    How many M&Ms are in the jar? None, they're skittles. – Aza Feb 3 '15 at 7:52
  • 25
    Again, like every year... annual compensation is NET or GROSS salary? For me, living in the EU, is very, very different... – Lorenzo Dematté Feb 3 '15 at 7:59
  • 31
    Call me a pessimist...It seems less like a SO survey and more a Careers2.0 "lets do some market research to help us better monetize our careers site" survey... – SW4 Feb 3 '15 at 12:03

29 Answers 29


Could there please be a way to avoid the endless job/career questions next time (ex. if you say "Unemployed/I'm a student" once, then you don't get any career-based questions for the rest of the survey)? I'm still in middle school and although I did my best to answer them speculatively, I doubt they'd be of any use in terms of actually gathering statistics.

Anyway, my answers here for the curious.

  • 173
    Very impressive rep for a Middle School student. – PM 77-1 Feb 3 '15 at 2:50
  • 17
    I get that the survey is a great opportunity to get feedback on the main revenue generating part of SO/SE, but @Doorknob is right, that was too much. Perhaps have a few mandatory (for non-students) job/career questions and then give people the option to either end it there or continue to the full set of job/career questions if they want to. – Dhaust Feb 3 '15 at 3:29
  • 29
    "I'm still in middle school" The heck? Impressive, man. – Makoto Feb 3 '15 at 4:34
  • 6
    First year college student in the same boat. Must be even less relevant to you... – ApproachingDarknessFish Feb 3 '15 at 5:16
  • 20
    @PM77-1 If you think a middle school student is impressive, you should visit the LAMP tags: They are full of infants. ;P – yannis Feb 3 '15 at 9:56
  • 3
    Doorknob, you're in Middle School? Holy crap, that's impressive! I'm in High School and don't have nearly as much rep. – RPiAwesomeness Feb 3 '15 at 12:58
  • 36
    Youth is wasted on the young. – Matt Burland Feb 3 '15 at 14:32
  • 5
    Question, @Doorknob. Did you get the Jar question? I'm wondering if it's an age thing barrier thing... – RPiAwesomeness Feb 3 '15 at 15:11
  • 10
    @RPiAwesomeness There was indeed a severe lack of M&Ms when I took the survey. – Doorknob Feb 3 '15 at 15:57
  • 1
    Alas that survey (which I didn't fill, but thanks for showing us the questions) coupled with the increased job postings ads I see on SO makes me think this site is going the way of LinkedIn: corcodilos.com/blog/5913/linkedin-just-another-job-board – Fizz Feb 3 '15 at 21:31
  • 5
    I'm also in middle school, but it was pretty easy to speculatively answer the job questions... however, I do lack experience, anyway... and what about remote freelancers? Also, I felt this whole survey was to gather statistics and improve careers SO – Cilan Feb 3 '15 at 22:04
  • 1
    @RPiAwesomeness: Answer: one? :) – Teemu Leisti Feb 4 '15 at 11:57
  • 9
    I'm 26 and this kid is probably a better programmer than me. – Lawrence Aiello Feb 6 '15 at 19:53
  • 1
    @LawrenceAiello never judge yourself by your reps. The more one is active on SO, the more reps he will earn. As simple as that. But yeah, OP is a good programmer. – Amit Joki Feb 7 '15 at 14:07
  • 4
    I disagree. There should be a way to say "I'm a student" and answer the career questions anyway, For example for university students that are going to look for a job in a few years and might have clear ideas in what they want. There are also people that had a few years of working experience, then decided to take a degree, and they may know full well what's good for them. In the end, I'd simply put a checkbox "I'm interested in career related questions" for everyone and be done. – Bakuriu Feb 8 '15 at 19:44

Not bad, this. Not bad at all. Good job!

Some thoughts, not important:

  • I wish the "Which of the following best describes your occupation?" question allowed multiple answers, as literally four of these fit my job description depending on the day of the week. Not all of us are in single-track roles!

  • Also, including distinct options "C++" and "C++11" doesn't make much sense (at least make the former "C++98 or C++03"), especially when omitting "C++14"...!

  • The M&Ms question is great (in general you've balanced this survey really well) and lol @ wanting "health insurance" from a job... peasants!

Edit: Reading the comments above, there are a few things I hadn't considered. Foremost is that I hadn't even noticed how this really does seem like a Careers 2.0 information-gathering-for-monetisation exercise, since there were really very few questions that seemed to pertain to SO activity itself or the community in any way that relates to our SO lives whatsoever. And the fact that I hadn't even noticed that is really disturbing!!!

  • 85
    ). And +1 for the "health insurance", not every dev lives in a third world country without public healthcare. – l4mpi Feb 3 '15 at 12:46
  • 2
    Yeah, I got to the occupation question and didn't bother going on. I use my math background to design machine learning algorithms that I then implement on embedded systems where I write everything from the device drivers to the HTML5 frontend. – Katie Feb 3 '15 at 14:40
  • 2
    @Katie: I don't think it was enough reason to stop answering though! – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 3 '15 at 16:03
  • 1
    Thx - those are great points for next round. – Jaydles Feb 3 '15 at 16:45
  • The predictive modeling is obviously very important for Careers but it can also be used for improvements to the SO home page/interesting questions tab, which is not about monetization. So it has some co-benefits. – Air Feb 3 '15 at 20:32
  • @animuson: It was "needed" because it was a fairly substantial edit after votes had already been cast. It's unethical not to include it. What is this, "fundamental alterations" day? :( BTW thanks for locking that other answer - appreciate it :) – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 3 '15 at 22:12
  • 2
    @l4mpi: in that case, the survey-taker has the option of not checking the "health insurance" box, right? – Teemu Leisti Feb 5 '15 at 9:15
  • @Teemu: "What is your favourite sport? [ ] American Football [ ] Baseball [ ] Bucking Bronco [ ] None of the above" "Well, I have the option of picking 'none of the above' but this is kind of insulting!" – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 5 '15 at 10:09
  • 2
    @LightnessRacesinOrbit: Well, that would be silly, but not really the same as having one US-specific choice for an answer. I surmise that a significant percentage of StackOverflow's users are in the US, and therefore, this choice would be relevant to them, so I don't find it insulting. I guess it might be puzzling to non-US developers who aren't aware of the US health care situation. – Teemu Leisti Feb 5 '15 at 11:37
  • 3
    @Teemu: It's something like 30% US last I checked (need to find new data for that, though). So an overwhelming majority have nothing to do with the US whatsoever. – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 5 '15 at 11:39
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit: OK then. Anyway, I've said what I wanted to say on this issue. – Teemu Leisti Feb 5 '15 at 11:42
  • 4
    For the description of my occupation, I was hoping for some “It’s complicated” answer like social networks allow for the relationship status… – poke Feb 9 '15 at 7:43
  • +1 for the Edit about Careers 2.0 information gathering – Ram Feb 13 '15 at 15:54
  • I didn't get the "M&Ms" question :-(. After reading this answer I opened the survey in Incognito mode and scrolled through it and found the M&Ms question. Is appearance of the question in the survey based on country/karma/employment or something like that? – andrybak Feb 15 '15 at 22:48
  • @AndreyRybak: Are you sure you didn't accidentally click past it? – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 16 '15 at 4:51

I have had a dilemma:

Are you familiar with Stack Overflow Careers?


What made you want to try Stack Overflow Careers?

"Uhm... I didn't try. As I did not see the need yet..." (missing choice, it seems)

So should I pick "Yes" and get into trouble later and be unable to opt in for an account. Or fake that I even did not have heard of it and get the account?!? (something I did not have heard according to my answer)

I saw what you did there: a trick question!

On a more serious note, something to think of in the next survey:

  • I suppose it is not too unexpected that someone knows something but did not try it (for reasons)?
  • I would like to have an account (I did not earlier, but at the moment I would like one), which was not possible as I choose "Yes!"...
  • 1
    I had the same reaction, including becoming interested in a Careers account as a result of the survey. So what I did was change my answer from "yes" to "I want an invite" and select "other" for the motivation question. – Air Feb 4 '15 at 16:30
  • 3
    Yeah, I was a bit confused about whether they were asking if I knew what the site was or whether I was familiar with using it. I'm familiar with the idea, but I've never used it, so I picked "No". – starsplusplus Feb 4 '15 at 20:13

What are the most annoying things about searching for a new job?

I kinda feel like this should include "salary negotiation". I guess it counts as part of the "interview process", but it's a very specific part that I have a gripe with.


I like the field to enter in your own job title, that should take care of many problems.

I do think a significant answer was missing from "Why do you answer SO questions", which is to learn new stuff. Personally I learn tons from trying to help others out, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Like the jar question as well. Wonder how close I got. Hmmm... I've long wanted an SO t-shirt, and it'd sure be nice to finally get it...

  • 2
    Where was this jar question? I took the survey once seriously and again to just look for the jar question and both times saw no mention of a jar! – RPiAwesomeness Feb 3 '15 at 15:09
  • 15
    D'oh - using the challenge of answering to learn is something we talk about a lot. Totally should have included it. Great note for next year. – Jaydles Feb 3 '15 at 16:46
  • 1
    I was kind of surprised to not see it, which is why I made the mention... Good to know it'll be there next year, and for this year, there's always the other field... – PearsonArtPhoto Feb 3 '15 at 17:30

The list of occupations looks like buckshot. So many orthogonal options. A full-time student co-founds a startup business as CIO, and in that capacity spends her time developing software and administering databases; which option does she choose? Maybe you're more interested in her choice than the full picture, but you don't know why she made that choice and whether it aligns at all with your motivations for asking the question (Providence, presumably).

At the very least, student status could have been its own question. Full-time, part-time, less/none. Boom, done.

The inclusion of a category for other scientists and engineers would have been nice. I'm far from the only user here whose formal educational and professional background are "adjacent" to IT/CS but with some overlap. I'm interested to see the makeup of "other" occupation responses.

  • Yeah, this is tough. And you nailed it, we're interested in seeing how you self identify in terms of occupation. Also yeah we hope to see how this measures up vs. Providence. We probably could have phrased the question better. Right now about 9% of respondents are selecting a write-in. – samthebrand Feb 5 '15 at 16:23
  • 1
    I think the tradition (requirement?) of people having A Job Title is what makes it potentially hard to tease out that self identification. The executive who spends most of their time engineering probably very much wants to identify as an engineer, but their nameplate says CTO/CIO/etc. and they probably put a lot of effort into getting to that nameplate so they want to express that too. – Air Feb 5 '15 at 16:48
  • that's a good point. This could make for a really interesting blog/meta post. – samthebrand Feb 5 '15 at 16:51

Will the raw data (please) be published once the survey is done? I'm particularly interested in knowing the answers per participant (i.e., some anonymous ID) to do our own attempts of analysis.

The format should include a verbose list of answers per question, and a list of answers (or answer IDs) per question per participant ID. (Including the candy box, of course!)

That would be great!

  • TABS vs SPACES: Do they mean hitting the tab key, or using tabs (the character)? I hit the tab key, yet use spaces as soft-tabs.
    • I wish I could select multiple for things like operating system and occupation. I am relatively new at my job, and my main projects involve both Rails testing and Bootstrapping the app.
    • Asking which OS is used for work and home (if different) would be nice. It shows whether IT/programming industries work more with Windows or Linux. I use Linux at work, but Windows at home.
  • GENDER: Finally, I am interested in finding out how many other female users will take this survey.
  • 13
    I did, do I count? :) – Rachel Feb 3 '15 at 18:59
  • 1
    Yeah, I feel like a lot of people who use linux also use windows. – slicedtoad Feb 6 '15 at 18:55
  • 4
    I use Linux at work, but need Windows to play 97% of my Steam games. I prefer Linux for straight up coding, research, data entry, etc. – onebree Feb 6 '15 at 22:15
  • I'd like to select multiple OSes as well. At work I'm on Win7, at home I have an iMac which triple boots OSX, Win7 and Ubuntu and I have a laptop with Win8. I'd say my time is split fairly evenly across all those environments as they're all good for different things. – ivarni Feb 8 '15 at 10:48
  • I use OS X at work and Linux at home. I selected OS X because I work more than I use computers at home. – Rafael Almeida Feb 8 '15 at 18:52
  • 3
    I think I use my phone much more at home than my computer. I wonder if anyone put android as their main OS – onebree Feb 8 '15 at 20:45
  • 5
    Windows at home? Sicko. – tripleee Feb 11 '15 at 8:12
  • 4
    @tripleee yes, windows, doors, carpet, and walls. – onebree Feb 11 '15 at 11:26


This is a good survey, I like it!

But it could be better!

Ok, let's be honest..

Generally, I liked questions in survey (especially, the jar), but let's be honest - some of them will not be answered correctly. I will provide an example:

When evaluating a new employment opportunity what's most important to you? (please select 3 things that matter most)

What is fine here - is first part. What is not fine here - is the second part. I always could not understand why HR-related questions are trying to restrict a person with "N conditions". Yes, we are living not in ideal world, but:

  • Most likely, I will have more conditions for job place in order to satisfy my requests. I'm quite sure in my professional qualification, that's why I will choose, judging by "Work/life balance" AND "Company stage" AND "Industry" AND "Salary" AND "Office location" AND "Tech stack" AND "Opportunity for advancement" - and it's hard to say for me which one is "better" or what is desired more. Because - all of them are important.
  • May be I will have two groups - primary and secondary - thus, is some things don't fit my primary group, I won't even pay attention to position / offer. And then - if I will find several options, I will take a look to "benefits" which will be in secondary group - such as "Remote working options" for example (but, remember, those are only for me - other people may have other preferences).

So the point is - in the example above - the people who are on advanced professional level - will not just able to answer properly. Because - it's how it works, if person knows that his/her knowledge is valued enough, he/she will be more strict and expect more from next career opportunity. Thus, I am not sure such things as "select N from.." should be proposed - if some precise/honest answer will be expected.


And now I see:

When evaluating job opportunities how important is the ability to work remotely?

with an option to answer "Very important". So, what if a person didn't check that in previous question (see above, there is such option there)? Will it be considered as a "lie"? (because it's "yes" + "no" answers for same question). Ok, I understand, that previous example doesn't say "Select ONLY 3 and others don't matter" - but then, I think, such overlaps should be reconsidered, so this question should be removed and "count of options" for previous question should be increased by one. I hope this is not about "checking applicant for lie" - in my opinion, this is a greatest mistake for each HR process, because it is about - lack of trust.

Public projects?

Here is another thing:

Which of the following would make you most likely to respond to a message about a new job opportunity? (select up to 3)

With options: "Message is personalized" and "Code or projects I've worked on are referenced" (same as "Stack Overflow activity is mentioned"). I found these as an odd options for one question - because - how message could be not personalized and in same time mention projects on which I am/was working? So, it is about some "public projects" (so, let's say, open-source), but then, most probably, message will be somehow aware of me. Or, more, about SO activity. How it can be non-personalized and in same time, contain some data of my SO activity? It is confusing at lest - thus, one option includes others. It might be fine, if, again, there was no limitation on 3 possible choices.


Things above are not "just bad" - but they might be improved. Some things I just don't like in HR process and some questions in survey partly reminded me about that. So I created a short list, while was going through questions - and placed it above. I hope it will help SE team to improve such events in future.

  • "how message could be not personalized and in same time mention projects on which I am/was working?" So don't pick the one and not the other. Simple. (Note that the reverse case is sensible.) – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 3 '15 at 18:16
  • But that was the thing. What's the point to leave a possibility for ambiguous combinations? And, more, it is a possibility to "select 4 out of 3" (because, if I select "my SO activity was mentioned", I automatically will add "Message was personalized" implicitly) – Alma Do Feb 3 '15 at 18:17
  • 5
    "how message could be not personalized and in same time mention projects on which I am/was working" <-- simple. It could have a script that pulls the top projects by stars and inserts them into the body. There's a huge difference between "I saw you worked on x, y and z" and "You seem to really understand abstract concept a. I've been looking at the stuff you do and your take on it is really interesting. Have you thought about b and c?". The first is just regurgitation. The second actually shows comprehension (and while isn't applicable to every dev, is to many). – ircmaxell Feb 3 '15 at 18:31
  • ^ nailed it.... – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 3 '15 at 18:31
  • @ircmaxell well, makes sense, but not always it is as in described scenario. Also, it's not only overlapping with that option about projects, but about SO activity too. I was thinking about - that every possible choice should have sense by design. – Alma Do Feb 3 '15 at 18:35
  • 1
    No, not always. That's why you don't "always" pick those options. What am I missing here.....? – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 3 '15 at 18:42
  • 1
    Personalized, yeah, that will make the marketing OK. Some of the nigerian spam is also now personalized. Somehow, addressing me by my first name doesn't help Prince Bufuku seem any more relevant or trustworthy on his request for my aid in moving $31,415,900 hidden in a trunk box marked 'raspberry pie'. – Paul Feb 6 '15 at 7:32

I'm particularly interested in the Tabs vs. Spaces debate. I'm on the Tab side, by the way.

Also, I'm not sure what is the criteria for the jar question to appear, but here it is for anyone who missed it:

how many m&ms are in the jar

  • any gueses on this? – Sajeetharan - MSFT Feb 5 '15 at 4:10
  • 8
    Yeah, I nearly answered this wrong, but after a closer look, I noticed that only 43 of them are actually peanut M&Ms. The remaining 121 are normal M&Ms. – Marco13 Feb 5 '15 at 17:28
  • 5
    @Marco13 Are you sure it is 43 and not 42? – Seth Feb 5 '15 at 19:00
  • 1
    How the heck did u calculate that? – Naeem Shaikh Feb 6 '15 at 17:35
  • 6
    No idea what peanut M&M's are since M&M's are not popular around here and I don't remember if I've even seen any being sold. I thought everything in that jar was a peanut M&M and answered accordingly. – mcmlxxxvi Feb 9 '15 at 9:52
  • 3
    I did the same as @mcmlxxxvi. I don't even know what an M&M is (and couldn't care any less), so I just assumed that each of those things is an M&M (whatever the heck that means), and answered accordingly. – Masked Man Feb 9 '15 at 12:17
  • See the problem for me is that i don't even know how peanuts look like. I later Googled for the peanut look and it's like almost all those marbles in there are peanuts – Olu Smith Feb 11 '15 at 4:55
  • Lets say I did get it right, Do they deliver to African countries also (as the tradition goes, FOR FREE) – Olu Smith Feb 11 '15 at 5:12
  • The answer is simple: 0 – transilvlad Feb 12 '15 at 15:13
  • I couldn't get hold of Dr. Dre and since Slim Shady is not an answer, I followed @mcmlxxxvi reasoning too. – Buhake Sindi Feb 12 '15 at 15:55
  • What the **** are M&Ms anyways? No, I'm not going to google :P – kumarharsh Feb 13 '15 at 11:53
  • The M&Ms might be a reference to Van Halen. – Adam Arold Feb 16 '15 at 12:07

This question:


seemed to be missing an option along the lines of "I was out of work for so long I accepted the first serious offer I got" option. The options I selected weren't irrelevant, but what mattered the most is that they actually wanted to hire me.


The survey was pretty good except for the points that Doorknob made, but... why is everyone mentioning something about a jar question? I didn't see any question asking me to put how many M&M's are in the jar like many people are complaining about. RPi Awesomeness pointed out that it may have to do with age. Can someone clear this up for me?

Edit: I viewed it again, leaving nothing for age, and it popped up... so I guess it shows at random? Anyway, I think that's unfair... let EVERYONE try out for the t-shirt!

PS: My guess is 550, so you guys can take that number with your friend's and yours and divide it by 3 or whatever, just felt like putting it there :P

  • 4
    I'm pretty sure there's 42 M&Ms – ivarni Feb 4 '15 at 6:27
  • @ivarni Oh, yeah, that answer is also valid. – Cilan Feb 4 '15 at 13:56
  • Maybe depending on the country? They don't want to send it to Afghanistan? – Paŭlo Ebermann Feb 5 '15 at 17:30
  • @PaŭloEbermann Shipping isn't that expensive from the US to Afghanistan. – Cilan Feb 5 '15 at 22:02
  • @TheWobbuffet Might not be related to shipping cost, but more with other reasons. Maybe embargoes or similar. (Afghanistan seems a bad example.) – Paŭlo Ebermann Feb 6 '15 at 11:06

A list of nice question(excluding the careers questions), But there is only one thing which is really killing me,

Why I really have to count the M&Ms to get a Stack overflow shirt

Why don't we just get a Shirt if we get our rep passed 10,000(not too many people achieve that 10,000 count, not even me), Those people are really worthy of getting that as a gift for serving the site, aren't they.

I know this looks like some kind of question, but cheers

  • 2
    If you can see this you would surprise that there are 6k+ users who're with 10k+ reputation. This is just too many users. I'm sure SE would give such t-shirts to each of them (even I'm not in that league). But one who would really guess to the approx. & nearest value of peanuts in the jar would may get this t-shirt. So you only have to guess, don't need to count it. I used my mind to get approx. count in 5 seconds. Cheers! – Hemang Feb 5 '15 at 10:11
  • i required more time about 10 minutes.. but its ok – Naeem Shaikh Feb 5 '15 at 10:13
  • I bet, that's just for a fun. No body gonna guess the exact count out of it. – Hemang Feb 5 '15 at 10:14

I did stop halfway, too, sorry. As for many other surveys I did happen to try to fill, it doesn't take reality into consideration. Do not take offence, however, because this is a standard among surveys.


I'm a freelancer, how am I supposed to work in only 1 industry and not starve? I've got a number of customers, every one in its own sector, probably half of those listed fit my current/last two month/next two month customers, and I work on a few projects at the same time often for the same customer in different industry.

Being a freelancer means I'm obviously responsible for each thing bought at work, because I am my "work place", I'm not going ask anyone if I want to buy a new PC (well, except the bank, but that is another story), so whatever answer I do choose it's the wrong one.

And so on...as I said, however, this is the same with every single survey (found some where they ask if you are a freelancer and then ask how many employee your company has. Wait, which company? Can't have employees while being a freelance...)


I didn't see an option for my level of education (2-year Associates Degree in Software Applications and Programming). There were options for Bachelors (4 years) and Masters (8 years), but no Associates.

Also, I needed more time to count the M&Ms... wish they hadn't been mid-survey.

  • 7
    What does the position of the M&M question have to do with the time it takes to answer the question? – TylerH Feb 3 '15 at 16:44
  • @TylerH I was impatient to finish the survey that is all. I didn't want to stop to count M&Ms, but I wanted more time to count the M&Ms later on :) – Rachel Feb 3 '15 at 18:59
  • Ahh. I saw the counting question at the very beginning of the survey. I didn't know its placement was random. – TylerH Feb 3 '15 at 19:05
  • 1
    In most of the world, I think Bachelor is 3 years and Master 4-5 years. – Lundin Feb 4 '15 at 14:37
  • @Lundin: It might depend on the major, but in the US I've rarely seen a Bachelor's (especially in Science) under 4 years. Edit: maybe I should add, for reference, that I graduated in 2008. Perhaps times are a changin'. – Cᴏʀʏ Feb 4 '15 at 14:55
  • @Cᴏʀʏ Perhaps it depends on whether or not the education requires real-world practice at a company before you get the degree, and whether or not you count that time as part of the education. – Lundin Feb 4 '15 at 15:01

This survey was way too long. I don't think it is very effective for collecting data, because my guess is 90% or more applicants don't complete it. Most people are completing this at work and they are busy

  • 2
    Yup, it's long. But I don't think necessarily too long. Right now about 80% of respondents are completing the survey. – samthebrand Feb 5 '15 at 16:18
  • 1
    Wow. That number is much better than I guessed – Code Whisperer Feb 5 '15 at 16:37


How about an option for "If I was looking for a new job" ... if I'm not looking, I'm unlikely to respond to any message!


Would be nice if self employed developers who sell their own products get some love in the current employment status question.

I don't identify as freelancer or contractor, I sell my own products.


Here is probable answer for M&M's question:

The container is logically integrated shape for Square and Circle. It has 9 x 6 (rows x columns). In last smaller row it has 9 M&M's and gradually 1 M&M's added in each row from bottom to top, right?

So mathematically it is:

9*6 + 10*6 + 11*6 + 12*6 + 13*6 + 14*6 + 15*6 + 16*6 + 17*6

On simplefication:

6(9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17)
= 6*117
= 702.

So answer is 702.

Have fun!

  • I used the volume of a trapezium and multiplied it by 6, hence my answer landed to 540. – Buhake Sindi Feb 12 '15 at 15:57

After Suvey has been closed... what was the final Answer to the M&M question?


Okay, to start off with - I don't have a thing to say about the M&M question.

The survey was good, except some of the "pick only 3" were a bit much.

My only comment is whenever the survey is over, if it could be compared with the previous year's survey result (is that even possible? I remember last year's survey being more SO oriented) that would be great.


If the number of M&Ms isn't 1,337 or 9,001, I will be very disappointed.

  • 8
    Did you take the survey twice? – zx8754 Feb 13 '15 at 12:59
  • No, it's leetspeak. The former means "elite" and the later is from a pretty popular meme. – Chris Apr 19 '15 at 0:14

I just compiled the survey but i was totally confused by 1 thing:

you put frontend developer as job title, but when you have to answer about language/technologies used, there is no checkbox for the backbone of this job (and also of this page you're reading), like HTML and CSS, or other frontend stuff like sass, zurb-foundation framework, jQuery, jquery-ui etc. etc. even if these tags are in the top-10 popular chart https://stackoverflow.com/tags?tab=popular

just tell me, why? i think that this "detail" will invalidate the questions about tech/languages

  • 1
    Which compiler did you use? – canon Feb 10 '15 at 21:26
  • Why do you think a compiled language is a prerequisite for serious work? If something really needs to be optimized for performance, that's the last step of the research and development process. Recall Hoare's dictum. – tripleee Feb 11 '15 at 8:18
  • Compiler? for what? :) – pastorello Feb 12 '15 at 15:46

I can do the survey a second time?

I just tried to look at my submitted answers, but when I used the link the survey wasn't filled in, and I coudl submit it once again.

Isn't it linked (under the hood, semi-anonymously) to my SE account?

Is there a way to find out my own answers?


According to me survey is very long. It should be short and effective. I think most of people left it in between.

I just completed survey and looks good collection of questions. It seems some things can avoid like salary specific questions/options. Also options should be limited.

In questions where allow to select max. 3 options at there it should allow at least 5 options to select. Jar question was funny and interesting also. We can say its refreshment from continue survey questions...




I started servey.. and I closed it halfway. Reasons? I get annoyed by questions, which makes no sense to me.

Some page has a question "Are you interested in new job opportunities?" and I say Nope, and then several following pages (shortly after cookies picture) are basically keep asking me about job opportunities.

Sorry, but no. Just no. Clever survey - yes. Stupid survey - no.

P.S.: I don't want T-Shirt anyway.

P.S.S.: there are 0 M&M's.. I think..

  • 7
    You should go back and count the M&Ms again... I removed the blue ones so there's a negative amount now. – slugster Feb 4 '15 at 11:16
  • 3
    I think, it's P.P.S. – Philm Feb 12 '15 at 16:52

I got the impression that StackOverflow tries to disguise the preparation of targeted spamming with career "opportunities" by a few kind-a-fun questions. How witty.

  • Funny as a comment. – Trilarion Feb 13 '15 at 13:29
  • Even if much of the questionnaire is aimed at increasing the value of careers.SE, "Preparation of targeted spamming" is pure fantasy. – Pekka 웃 Feb 16 '15 at 20:27

I hear people qalking about a M&M question but I didn't get to see it :) Now I can't get a t-shirt. (Little sad)

Anyway I think the answer should be 1111 because 11 is the magic number of awesomeness and 1111 are 2 times 11 behind each other, therefor making it twice as powerfull and awesome as 11, making it the number of M&M's in the jar (Warning: the amount of M&M's change to 1111 after reading this answer due to it's enormous power.)

Also I would like to mention that you might now want to ask so many job questions if somebody is a student of is less than 20 years old.

Try mixing up the questions better next year so unemployed people or yougsters also have some intresting questions. I am shure that it is possible.

Also a nice poll (Next to the Tab vs Spaces poll) would be

If (Condition){



Note the closing }

Or how about this one If (I=1) VS If(I = 1) Note the spaces.

Anybody has more Ideas, leave them in the comments.

  • 4
    These syntactic preference questions really depend on the programming language. – Paŭlo Ebermann Feb 6 '15 at 9:01
  • That's true but the most used ones are using these. If you have some better ones feel free to comment them so everybody can see – BRHSM Feb 8 '15 at 12:29
  • Why the downvotes these suggestions are good right – BRHSM Feb 8 '15 at 12:30
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    @CoderGuy On Meta, downvotes mean disagreement. – NobodyNada Feb 9 '15 at 17:37
  • so that means I am the only one that agrees or are there any people that agree – BRHSM Feb 11 '15 at 10:12
  • It means some of the people who agree decided to upvote, and some of the people that disagree decided to downvote. You don't have enough rep yet to see how many voted in each direction. At the time of this comment, you have 5 upvotes on this answer. – Kevin B Feb 16 '15 at 16:57

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