AI Skills
Report
Executive Summary
Early signs of a hopeful human + AI future
AI raises big questions. Will it take our jobs? Will it enslave us and rule humanity? The thing is, these questions aren’t new. Back in the 1930s, even Einstein warned that machines might enslave us all. Despite the fears, we’re still here, adapting and thriving with each technological leap.
Here at HackerRank, we envision a future that’s human + AI; where developers work with GenAI to learn, land jobs, and manage complex development projects. In this future, developers orchestrate AI agents to write most of the code, freeing them to focus on the creative and conceptual aspects of software development.
But we can’t see the future. There’s still concern that AI could go sideways. What we can do is understand where we stand today, and what that could mean going forward.
To grasp the current state of AI adoption, we surveyed over 6,300 developers and tech leaders and analyzed our proprietary platform data. This split approach let us study not only opinions but also concrete actions.
What did we find?
GenAI Usage
Developers are embracing GenAI to work more efficiently, offloading tedious tasks (or the tedious parts of tasks) to get to the good stuff. And they’re seeing results: 83% complete projects faster or much faster with GenAI tools.
AI Sentiment
Developers aren’t concerned about AI takeover. Two-thirds believe AI will increase developer career opportunities, and nearly the same percentage anticipate using GenAI for many or most tasks in the next 5 years.
AI Adoption
Developers are embracing GenAI with or without company support. 55% use their own AI tools without company safeguards. And companies that are investing in AI by hiring for AI skills are up 40% year-over-year, outperforming the S&P 500.
AI Upskilling & Hiring
For now, companies are leaning into upskilling for GenAI skills rather than hiring. 69% of tech leaders are already preparing their workforce for GenAI, while 29% are hiring or preparing to hire more developers. While GenAI isn’t affecting most hiring plans yet, that early movement toward increased hiring is notable.
These findings give us reasons for optimism. AI may still enslave us all, but for now, developers are embracing it as a powerful tool, even when their employers lag. And companies are training their people and starting to increase hiring, rather than using AI to cut labor costs.
GEN AI USAGE
Developers use GenAI to offload tedious tasks and focus on what matters
Developers are using GenAI to learn new concepts on-demand and in the flow of work, replacing search engines and summarizing technical articles.
Additionally, GenAI assists with time-consuming tasks like debugging, code review, and documentation, allowing developers to focus more on writing and building.
Across tasks, developers leverage GenAI to get to the good stuff faster, like fast traveling in a video game.
GenAI assists with “repetitive”, “mundane” tasks, freeing developers to focus on work where they can really bring value.
“Mainly I use it to write some blocks of code…I don't have to waste time writing the usual code again and again.”
“I use AI for repetitive tasks where I can see a pattern…for stuff which does not require a personal or human touch.”
“I find AI most helpful with mundane tasks, like extracting any feature from data, sorting or arranging. Optimizing code to reduce its complexity & increased speed, writing test cases or generating fake data for testing my models.”
GenAI accelerates learning by summarizing complex information, enabling conversational back-and-forth, and sparing developers from slogging through search results.
“I use AI to get a start on unknown concepts as a conversational assistant.”
“I find AI most useful when having it explain something in much more human language, and saving me from searching for hours.”
“[GenAI] helps me find answers for niche questions and summarizes documentation so I can get to building faster. ”
83% of developers complete projects faster with GenAI
GenAI tools boost developer productivity, with 83% of developers reporting that GenAI tools help them complete development projects faster or much faster.
Only 2% feel that GenAI tools slow them down.
Engineering managers agree: 68% say their teams complete projects faster with GenAI tools.
AI Sentiment
Developers aren’t concerned about AI takeover
When ChatGPT launched two years ago, there was a lot of speculation about AI taking developer jobs.
Today, only 9% of developers think AI will replace them.
In fact, developers are quite optimistic about their prospects. 2 in 3 predict an increase in future developer career opportunities.
Skills aren’t going anywhere
There’s been plenty of worry that AI will devalue developer skills, but when developers get hands-on with GenAI tools, they adopt the opposite position.
73% of developers expect core computer science skills to become even more vital as AI advances.
Why? These fundamentals are essential for leveraging GenAI effectively and safeguarding the accuracy and quality of their work.
Developers envision a human + AI future
Developers broadly anticipate deeper partnership with GenAI: two-thirds believe they’ll use AI for many or most tasks in the next five years.
40% of developers expect an evolution from the present, using AI for many basic tasks. Another 26% predict orchestrating most work through AI agents.
Only 5% predict AI won’t be heavily used.
Taken together, developers are mostly looking to a future of collaboration with AI.
AI ADOPTION
Developers are embracing GenAI – with or without company support
55% of developers source their own GenAI tools without any company safeguards, and nearly 20% use AI even when it's forbidden.
This is a bottom-up movement: developers aren’t hanging back, waiting for their employers to bestow GenAI tools upon them. They’re adopting AI because it brings them value, and because others are doing the same.
Companies may be tempted to move slowly on AI until best practices more fully emerge, but ‘not doing AI’ may not be an option.
By treating AI as a threat to be mitigated rather than an opportunity to be embraced, companies risk more than just falling behind faster competitors. Developers using unmonitored or loosely supervised generative AI tools could expose organizations to significant compliance and data security risks.
It pays to innovate
Companies embracing innovation – and AI in particular – are outperforming the market.
Taken as a whole, publicly-traded HackerRank customers posted higher year-over-year growth than the S&P 500, and those actively hiring for AI skills are up 40% from 2023.
The most engaged companies, those with 15 or more active tests for AI skills, are up 46% over the same period.
AI UPSKILLING & HIRING
Companies are leaning into GenAI upskilling over hiring
For now, companies are more focused on preparing their current workforce for GenAI than hiring additional talent.
69% of tech leaders are actively preparing their workforce for GenAI, compared to 29% that are hiring or planning to hire more developers.
Not all GenAI training is equal
Some preparation efforts are considerably more robust than others.
Best
“We created a group of developers who were eager to try out GenAI, and selected four as "champions". As everybody was invited to adopt it, these champions hosted sessions to answer questions and share knowledge and tips”.
“We’re training employees to use GenAI through hands-on workshops and online courses. We provide examples of integrating GenAI into daily tasks, such as coding and project management. Regular practice and Q&As help them get comfortable with the tools, and we encourage sharing tips and experiences.”
“We are in the process of creating our own AI chatbot tool for answering any query.”
Good
“We mostly rely on self-education and posting information about changes and enhancements to various tools being used.”
“We teach edge cases and how they can use it in their day-to-day, as well as how GenAI still needs improvement, and how to detect it.”
“We have a certification drive going on for all. From basic to advance level GenAI certification, with required resources provided. Basic certification is mandated.”
Behind
“Other than an optional copilot course, we don’t do training.”
“By telling them to use smarter prompts.”
GenAI is just beginning to affect hiring
While most companies aren’t hiring for GenAI – 58% of leaders say GenAI hasn’t changed their hiring plans – where there is movement, it’s toward hiring more developers.
10% of companies are already hiring more developers, and AI leaders are hiring double that, at 21%.
These early patterns correlate with what we’re seeing in our platform data. As of Q2 2024, 15% of HackerRank customers are actively hiring for AI skills.
Consulting and IT services ramp up AI hiring activity
Among the 15% of HackerRank customers hiring for AI skills, consulting and IT services edged ahead of tech customers in Q2 2024.
This sector has a history of guiding technological transformations, and now appears to be gearing up to support more widespread AI adoption.
We'll monitor if this trend signals wider corporate AI adoption.
AI penetration reveals industry patterns
Studying AI penetration – the share of HackerRank customers hiring for AI skills – reveals how active different sectors are in AI.
For example, 22% of manufacturing customers are hiring for AI skills, well above the cross-industry average of 15%. This is almost certainly higher than manufacturing in general, as our customers in the sector are typically more tech forward, but it’s notable nonetheless.
A convergence of factors is driving advanced manufacturing companies to invest in AI. Bain reports that adopting technologies such as AI is their top R&D priority.
Companies are going global to access AI talent pools
We’re also seeing a shift in how – or where – companies are seeking out AI talent.
While more than half of customers hiring for AI are based in the Americas, companies are looking for these skills globally.
Methodology
The HackerRank AI Skills Report relies on two exclusive sources of data:
HackerRank Platform Data
Data extracted from the HackerRank platform through the end of Q2 2024. HackerRank collects millions of data points in a given year, and careful analysis can yield powerful insights into developer and organizational behavior. Surveys can help us understand what people are thinking and feeling. Platform data reveals what they actually do. For this report, we looked at a number of different metrics, including overall test invites, attempt rate, active tests, and more.
AI Skills Survey
The AI Skills Survey was conducted among the HackerRank community in the summer of 2024. In total, 6,393 developers, engineering managers, talent acquisition professionals, executives, and students completed the survey. Due to the nature of the survey, the number of responses to specific questions may vary. Some questions, for example, were directed only at developers, others only at managers, and so on.
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