Software development is one of the hottest jobs in the Philippines right now. Filipino developers are in high demand in the job market with most of their clients based in the US and other Western countries. Curious about the software scene in the Philippines? Here’s a short primer for you:
Demographics: Age, Gender, Location
The average age of Filipino developers ranges from 20 to 30 years old. In this country, 61% of the developers are in the Lower Age Group (teens to 25 years old). While the 24% are in the Journeymen Group (26 to 30 years old) and the remaining 15% are in the Seniors Group (31 to 60 years old).
In the Philippines, software development is a man’s game. Survey says, 94% of developers are male and the remaining 6% are female. In the US, the software development scene is dominated by men too.
Most of the developers in the Philippines are in Metro Manila, the nation’s capital. 70% of them are located in the country’s center for commerce while 21% are in other parts of the country. Also, 3% are working abroad and 6% are in an unknown location. In the metro, they usually can be found in the main business districts, namely Ortigas, Makati and Bonifacio Global City.
Working Experience
Their main lines of work are start-ups and enterprises. If combined, 78% of them are engaged in these kinds of work. Also, 16% are working as consultants and 6% are doing other work.
In terms of coding, majority (60%) of them have more than five years of experience. And in terms of education, eight out of ten Filipino developers are college graduates. 76% of them have bachelor’s degree and only 1% are in high school.
Preferred Technology
Filipino developers prefer using Windows as their operating system. In fact, 38% of them use it, but Linux is not far behind at 36%.
Their main programming languages are PHP, Java and Ruby. But among the three, PHP is their most preferred language. (PHP: 69%, Java: 18%, Ruby: 18%)
In terms of IDE, majority of them are using Eclipse (26%). However, many (25%) of them believe that IDEs are for wimps and code directly using text editors such as Vim or Sublime.
In the Philippines, Git (57%) is the champion of Version Control Systems while CVS (1%) is the least used. Also, 11% of them opted not to use one.
What Do Filipino Developers Love?
As it turns out, they like many of the same things developers in other parts of the world do. Since Filipinos are more social than most, they also like working in teams.
- Open Source Culture. Filipino developers love it because it can revolutionize industries and create positive changes for businesses. And most of all, it’s free.
- Hackathons. Filipino developers enjoy hackathons. This year, there have been several successful hackathons held in the Philippines such as AngelHack Manila and Philippines TechCamp Hackathon.
- Good Reading Materials. Filipino developers have a passion for learning. To enhance their knowledge, they want to read as many good books as possible.
- Good Salary and Benefits. Compared to other countries, the salary rates are lower in the Philippines. In the US, the starting salary of a developer averages at around $80,000 to $120,000 as of 2014. Locally, it can be as low as 1/3 or 1/5 of that. But of course, they still want their salaries to be comparable to other developers in the world.
If you’d like to find out more about Filipino developers and developer culture, do checkout The Philippine Software Engineering Scene slide deck.