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Can anyone in the app development world speak to whether or not there actually is a shortage of Android devs? Or is Google just trying to spark innovation by g

Can anyone in the app development world speak to whether or not there actually is a shortage of Android devs? Or is Google just trying to spark innovation by getting more engineers into the Android ecosystem?

bko 11y ago
I'm not from that world but I noticed that I read a new article every few months that iOS App Store is continuing to gain a larger and larger share of app store revenue. Perhaps Google is worried about declining developer attention focus on developing for the Android platform. Network effects make markets like the app store a winner take all (more or less) Latest article: iOS App Store Revenue Now 80 Percent Higher Than Google Play, Thanks To China http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/15/ios-app-store-revenue-now-80-percent-higher-than-google-play-thanks-to-china/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/15/ios-app-store-revenue-now-8...
burritofanatic 11y ago
In my opinion, there is. Android is more difficult to program for. The programming environment itself can present itself as a challenge, and working with all the different Android versions can be a pain compared to iOS. It's a weird catch-22 as folks just end up going iOS only first as a result.
kin 11y ago
There is definitely a shortage of Android devs, especially domestic in the U.S. Haven't even been able to get a resume come in that isn't from overseas.
jaegerpicker 11y ago
There is a shortage of mobile developers across the board and a greater Android dev shortage in my experience. A bootcamp is certainly NOT the answer to that. Mobile dev even more then web development requires a level of experience and tech knowledge that is not possible to gain in 12 weeks.
stevenmays 11y ago
If there is a shortage of mobile devs have wages correspondingly risen? I'm sure if wages rise, more devs will learn it and fill that gap.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  I don't know how sure I am about that.
southphillyman 11y ago
Why not just hire experienced java devs? I completed half of an android MOOC course and for the most part it was just Java + mobile design patterns. The android specific stuff (build tools/IDE, configuration, version partitioning, etc) can be learned on the fly I assume.
- jasey 11y ago
  As someone who has developed an app for Android (going into it knowing Java really well) and now porting it to iOS using swift ( not knowing Swift at all), the language is actually the least of your worries. It's like you say the tooling, the paradigms, the UI and libraries, SQLite etc which are the biggest learning challenges. Also mobile dev is unique in its self (limited hardware & no reliable network conn) That's been my experience anyway...
potatolicious 11y ago
Have been building mobile apps for a living for a few years - which I suppose makes me a vet in a relatively new field, so maybe I can shed some light: Demand for mobile developers in general is off the charts, and still climbing. It's kind of absurd, really - the going rate for mobile devs has increased 200-300% over the past 3 years amongst colleagues I know, which I think is almost entirely attributable to the demand growth in this sector and the relatively slow growth of the talent pool. Looking at Android vs. iOS devs, both are in high demand but Android especially so. Overall demand for Android doesn't feel particularly pronounced, but the talent pool of experienced, competent Android devs is dramatically smaller than the counterpart in iOS-land. The key here is experienced, competent devs. We've interviewed a lot of Java people with minimal Android experience trying to make the leap over - it rarely goes well. Mobile development is substantially more complex than "knows Java and can work Android Studio". There are a few posts replying to yours that I want to respond to, but I'll just do it in one shot instead of littering a bunch of replies everywhere: RE: simply hiring experienced Java devs. This doesn't usually work - good mobile devs are also at least partially UX people - we spend a lot of time knee-deep in UI, and consumer expectations for the fit and finish of apps are high. Someone who has completed the "Hello World" equivalent of Android learning has done exactly that - finished "Hello World". It in no way implies the ability to build apps that aren't an embarrassment to the Play Store. There is a vast amount of domain knowledge here, and the gap between an app built by someone who merely knows the API vs. someone who knows mobile apps is pretty darned wide. RE: iOS gaining a larger share of revenue. This is true, but relatively inconsequential to most mobile devs. Outside of gaming the number of businesses directly monetizing apps is dropping. The bulk of attention for non-game apps go towards service-oriented apps (see: Uber, AirBnb, Facebook) for whom "app store revenue" is a nonsensical concept. There is lots, and lots* of work for companies that don't rely on direct monetization (i.e., app sales and in-app purchases) to live (and increasingly so). RE: the market balancing itself according to supply/demand. Yes, this is happening, but it's happening more slowly than the demand is rising, so overall wages are still rising. Much of this is because it's non-trivial to learn the domain knowledge necessary to really do this well, and consumer expectations on app quality is high enough that (to be charitable) the value of beginner-level devs vs. experienced devs is non-linear.
- 11y ago
Apocryphon 11y ago
I think they're doing this because while Android apps beat iOS in quantity, there's a widespread conception that it lags in quality. So Google is doing this to try to establish a higher standard of Android developers craftsmanship, to try to counter the "iOS first" mentality. I don't think there's a shortage of Android devs, but of really great devs. And because of lower overall quality of Android apps, and market perceptions of Android apps being more fungible and less worthy of being paid for, it ends up being a cycle where firms go for iOS first.

bko 11y ago

I'm not from that world but I noticed that I read a new article every few months that iOS App Store is continuing to gain a larger and larger share of app store revenue. Perhaps Google is worried about declining developer attention focus on developing for the Android platform. Network effects make markets like the app store a winner take all (more or less) Latest article: iOS App Store Revenue Now 80 Percent Higher Than Google Play, Thanks To China http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/15/ios-app-store-revenue-now-80-percent-higher-than-google-play-thanks-to-china/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/15/ios-app-store-revenue-now-8...

burritofanatic 11y ago

In my opinion, there is. Android is more difficult to program for. The programming environment itself can present itself as a challenge, and working with all the different Android versions can be a pain compared to iOS. It's a weird catch-22 as folks just end up going iOS only first as a result.

kin 11y ago

There is definitely a shortage of Android devs, especially domestic in the U.S. Haven't even been able to get a resume come in that isn't from overseas.

jaegerpicker 11y ago

There is a shortage of mobile developers across the board and a greater Android dev shortage in my experience. A bootcamp is certainly NOT the answer to that. Mobile dev even more then web development requires a level of experience and tech knowledge that is not possible to gain in 12 weeks.

stevenmays 11y ago

If there is a shortage of mobile devs have wages correspondingly risen? I'm sure if wages rise, more devs will learn it and fill that gap.

s73v3r 11y ago
I don't know how sure I am about that.

southphillyman 11y ago

Why not just hire experienced java devs? I completed half of an android MOOC course and for the most part it was just Java + mobile design patterns. The android specific stuff (build tools/IDE, configuration, version partitioning, etc) can be learned on the fly I assume.

jasey 11y ago
As someone who has developed an app for Android (going into it knowing Java really well) and now porting it to iOS using swift ( not knowing Swift at all), the language is actually the least of your worries. It's like you say the tooling, the paradigms, the UI and libraries, SQLite etc which are the biggest learning challenges. Also mobile dev is unique in its self (limited hardware & no reliable network conn) That's been my experience anyway...

potatolicious 11y ago

Have been building mobile apps for a living for a few years - which I suppose makes me a vet in a relatively new field, so maybe I can shed some light: Demand for mobile developers in general is off the charts, and still climbing. It's kind of absurd, really - the going rate for mobile devs has increased 200-300% over the past 3 years amongst colleagues I know, which I think is almost entirely attributable to the demand growth in this sector and the relatively slow growth of the talent pool. Looking at Android vs. iOS devs, both are in high demand but Android especially so. Overall demand for Android doesn't feel particularly pronounced, but the talent pool of experienced, competent Android devs is dramatically smaller than the counterpart in iOS-land. The key here is experienced, competent devs. We've interviewed a lot of Java people with minimal Android experience trying to make the leap over - it rarely goes well. Mobile development is substantially more complex than "knows Java and can work Android Studio". There are a few posts replying to yours that I want to respond to, but I'll just do it in one shot instead of littering a bunch of replies everywhere: RE: simply hiring experienced Java devs. This doesn't usually work - good mobile devs are also at least partially UX people - we spend a lot of time knee-deep in UI, and consumer expectations for the fit and finish of apps are high. Someone who has completed the "Hello World" equivalent of Android learning has done exactly that - finished "Hello World". It in no way implies the ability to build apps that aren't an embarrassment to the Play Store. There is a vast amount of domain knowledge here, and the gap between an app built by someone who merely knows the API vs. someone who knows mobile apps is pretty darned wide. RE: iOS gaining a larger share of revenue. This is true, but relatively inconsequential to most mobile devs. Outside of gaming the number of businesses directly monetizing apps is dropping. The bulk of attention for non-game apps go towards service-oriented apps (see: Uber, AirBnb, Facebook) for whom "app store revenue" is a nonsensical concept. There is lots, and lots* of work for companies that don't rely on direct monetization (i.e., app sales and in-app purchases) to live (and increasingly so). RE: the market balancing itself according to supply/demand. Yes, this is happening, but it's happening more slowly than the demand is rising, so overall wages are still rising. Much of this is because it's non-trivial to learn the domain knowledge necessary to really do this well, and consumer expectations on app quality is high enough that (to be charitable) the value of beginner-level devs vs. experienced devs is non-linear.

11y ago

Apocryphon 11y ago

I think they're doing this because while Android apps beat iOS in quantity, there's a widespread conception that it lags in quality. So Google is doing this to try to establish a higher standard of Android developers craftsmanship, to try to counter the "iOS first" mentality. I don't think there's a shortage of Android devs, but of really great devs. And because of lower overall quality of Android apps, and market perceptions of Android apps being more fungible and less worthy of being paid for, it ends up being a cycle where firms go for iOS first.