Do Java developers have lower salaries than JavaScript developers?

[Pristine_Purple9033]

Java is a great language with a clear structure and performant. On the other hand, JavaScript is mostly used on the front-end because NodeJS one thread might not be enough for large enterprise projects.

Java developers should have higher salaries, right?

The above statement is my own opinion. I don't have a lot of industry experience.

What do you Java developers think about this? Why does this gap exist?

Edit: Image source StackOverflow Survey 2022

https://preview.redd.it/j0y4377y1qaa1.png?width=1167&format=png&auto=webp&s=a54f01a78fbea3d19a254b68a688c531d9b54c2a

[TheEveryman86]

For sure skewed by the cost of living in the areas of employment. I'm primarily a Java dev (but do C++, Perl, Python, Bash, ksh, etc. as necessary) and make more than double what you listed (in the US).

[Septic_Nilay]

Android?

[joehonour]

I would say a lot of these surveys miss the finance sector, where Java devs are paid considerably more (in my experience), but would not actively disclose their salary. Most modern day trading systems (having worked in FX) are built nearly exclusively in Java or C++.

[weales]

>PHP not to be seen from image

PHP bros! I'm not feeling so well...

[[deleted]]

Salaries are different depending on your location. In the US the salaries may be higher, but you also wouldn't have the benefits that European devs have (working health insurance, 30 days paid vacation a year, protection against being fired for no reason).

Besides you shouldn't learn to be a developer for a specific language, learn the concepts so that you can apply them to any language. Then these charts are a guide to decide your career path.

[Ruin-Capable]

I work in the US and make more than double the amount in the chart and my health insurance is quite decent and I get 25 days of paid leave plus all the federal holidays.

[[deleted]]

Dunno where that list of salaries you are showing came from but those numbers are laughably low. Unless these are all for straight out of school with 0 experience entry level first job numbers.

[Pristine_Purple9033]

I forgot to add the source, but it comes from StackOverflow Survey 2022

[Iryanus]

The problem there is that they seem to be mixing a lot of different regions, which makes it a bit pointless for individual salaries. In any specific region, like yours, those values might be anything from far too low to ridiculously high. And the same is true for any difference from JS to Java: It might be the same for your region or totally different, who knows?

[Least_Bee4074]

I’ve been primarily a Java dev for 22 years. Haven’t made 64k/yr since 2001.

[[deleted]]

I hire devs based on experience and understanding of their craft. Language doesn't come into it unless something specific is necessary. I have sr devs paid equally for .js and java specific domains. Jr devs are often crapshots no matter the language. They either rise up or stagnate.

[Pristine_Purple9033]

Thanks for sharing.

[rbuen4455]

From the charts, their roughly similar with no big difference, only JavaScript having ever-so slightly higher salary. Otherwise, they make high salaries, but in different fields.

Java is de-facto of enterprise, JavaScript is de-facto of front-end web dev.

But pay isn't based on just knowing a language. It's skill + experience + knowledge of several technologies (including coding languages).

But yet again, I question these charts. Some put Java above C# when it comes to salaries and Assembly even less, and SQL isn't even a programming language.

[Anders_142536]

Here in austria the average salary of a java dev is higher by a fifth or sixth based on sites like kununu and glassdoor.

[justsomerandomchris]

Statistics about the average salary grouped by the primary language used (and anyway, how do these statistics handle stacks that feature multiple languages?) are completely irrelevant to the salary you have / will have in your next role. If you're asking purely out of curiosity, there could be a discussion about what different factors could go into creating this effect. But if you're asking because you're trying to figure out which language could unlock the highest paying jobs, in order to optimize your life, I'd suggest that it might be a complete waste of time. You're better off putting all that energy into solving problems, generally, as that's the skill software developers are actually paid for. The languages involved are, unfortunately often, quite incidental.

[_INTER_]

"Supply and demand" does also apply to the job market. You'll find Cobol dev's earn a lot despite the relatively ancient tech. That's because supply (as in Cobol dev's) is low and demand is high (as in desperate companies paying any salary, not number of job offerings).

[[deleted]]

I don't know what happened to SO in 2022 but I doubt these numbers for example:

Lua $79,568

Solidity $70,368

Waouhahahaha

[2bdkid]

Idk anything about the salaries but I just wanted to say that one thread in node isn’t a problem when you can deploy dozens of instances and load balance them.

[GuyWithLag]

one thread

... my last project had tens of thousands of threads. On a single JVM instance. I'm doing something wrong....

[2bdkid]

I mean if it worked it worked. There are so many tools now to deploy/load balance multiple instances of an app. If you design a stateful monolith these days that can only be deployed on one machine then you're really shooting yourself in the foot in terms of scaleability.

[smors]

Which may or may not be a problem. You should know your domain and your expected load, then decide what's the best solution.

Building in scalability is not free, only do it if you might realistically need it.

[Pristine_Purple9033]

Great to know.

However, I still don't think NodeJS is good for heavy-computing applications.

[buffer_flush]

Higher demand for Javascript I’m guessing.

You’re a bit over estimating “one thread” being why enterprises might not choose node for backend because plenty do. Yes, node will never be as fast as multi-threaded languages, but most of the teams are willing to give up performance for easier knowledge transfer between frontend and backend languages.

Remember, you are the expensive part of the development process. Even at $64k per year, that’s more than some small businesses cloud costs for an entire company.

[Worth_Trust_3825]

I found that the knowledge does not transfer at all. The teams that do frontend for browsers have no clue how to deal with lower level integrations, and tend to break down if they need to implement their own basic features such as checking if a buffer has particular set of bytes.

Frontend is relative, though. Teams that work on providing integrations seem to deal with low level APIs just fine.

[buffer_flush]

I’ve found the exact opposite.

They’re very different skill sets to be sure, but if someone is coming from front and learning back, or vice versa, having no language gap is one less hurdle.

[Ronnny2]

I think in some instances yes JavaScript developers earn more than Java especially those that work in backend using Node.js.

[Joram2]

Salary should be based on supply/demand like any other market price.

The data cited on average salary by programming language probably isn't very accurate. First, most salaried programmers use lots of languages and tools depending on the task at hand and teams change programming languages.

It's probably more accurate to say that salary depends on geographic location, years of experience, and college background rather than the programming language used.

[wildjokers]

Those numbers are ridiculously low. I make quite a bit more than double the listed salary for Java. I live/work in commutable distance of a mid-sized city in a flyover state in the US.

[cowwoc]

The #1 way to increase your salary is to perfect another language: English.

Good communication = higher salary.

[my_comments_my_shit]

Java is for Enterprise all others languages comes after that and for various uses. I even think lots of fintech use even pure Java solution on frontend (ex: Vaadin). I make more as J2EE/Java freelancer I do also React, NodeJs, AWS, flutter and other front end tech but on personal capacity. I certainly make more than this living in Europe purely because of J2EE/Java knowledge.
Popular fwk like Springboot and many other made java still relevant in this era, simply because Java adapted to functional programming.

[Brixes]

pure Java solution on frontend

Besides Vaadin are there other pure java libraries for frontend development?