7 Trends That Helped Shape Software Development in 2024

A year ago, ITPro Today predicted that key software development trends in 2024 would include developments like growing software security issues, a job market that no longer favored developers, and the irrelevance of blockchain development skills.

We're proud to say that those have indeed been important trends over the past year. That said, there were some other important developments, including in the realms of AI and platform engineering, that we missed when trying to predict the future of software development a year ago.

As a recap of what we did and didn't see coming, here's a look at seven major trends that impacted software development and software developers in 2024.

1. Developer Layoffs
2. Ongoing Cybersecurity Challenges
3. AI-Assisted Development Goes Mainstream
4. Changes to the Developer Experience
5. Platform Engineering Takes Off
6. Less Talk About CI/CD
7. Blockchain Fell Off the Screen

1. Developer Layoffs

2024 was not a banner year for folks interested in pursuing or continuing software development careers. On the contrary, ongoing layoffs made it much harder to find and keep a programming job, even for developers with in-demand skills. And, while layoffs occurred in other industries as well, tech employees had it especially hard: As we wrote in August, the unemployment rate in the U.S. tech industry, which stood at 5.9% early this past summer, was significantly higher than the overall U.S. unemployment rate of 4.1%.

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If you're an optimist, you might believe that a reduction in interest rates and a generally healthy economic environment as we close out 2024 mean that businesses will begin hiring more developers — or at least laying fewer of them off — in the new year.

2. Ongoing Cybersecurity Challenges

As in previous years, 2024 set new records for the scope and frequency of cybersecurity attacks. The overall rate of cyberattacks increased by around 30% compared with the previous year.

This trend can't be blamed entirely on developers. Many cybersecurity flaws result from oversights such as access control misconfigurations or malicious insiders, not security vulnerabilities in code written by developers. Still, the fact that the needle continues to move in the wrong direction on the cybersecurity front is a reminder of just how much work remains to improve application security — not to mention contending with new types of risks, such as prompt injection threats.

3. AI-Assisted Development Goes Mainstream

By 2024, the idea of using AI to generate code was old news. As we reported this year, more than 75% of developers now say they are using AI daily.

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As we also noted, however, increased adoption of AI correlates with lower rates of software delivery stability and speed — suggesting that although AI can boost overall developer productivity by helping coders write code faster, it may slow down release cycles due to the time necessary to fix mistakes made by AI coding tools.

4. Changes to the Developer Experience

There were also signs in 2024 that developers were somewhat less happy with their job experiences. This was due especially to "unstable priorities and constant pivoting," as one of our contributors wrote.

Massive layoffs probably didn't help, either, as they likely made it hard for some developers to focus on what they enjoy most — coding — due to anxiety about whether they'd keep their jobs long enough to see their code make it into production.

5. Platform Engineering Takes Off

Platform engineering has been a buzzworthy topic in the world of software development and DevOps for several years. In 2024, however, the concept of platform engineering truly came into its own, delivering significant benefits to organizations that adopted the practice.

As a report from Puppet by Perforce showed in March, about half of organizations that have adopted platform engineering found that it boosted productivity, while 40% associated it with improved software quality.

Data points like these suggest that platform engineering isn't just a trendy fad; it's becoming an increasingly important part of businesses' strategies for remaining efficient and competitive.

6. Less Talk About CI/CD

In addition to a focus on innovative trends such as platform engineering, 2024 was marked by relatively little buzz surrounding more conventional DevOps practices, such as continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD).

This was notable because just a few years ago, practices like CI/CD still felt innovative and at least somewhat cutting-edge. They remain widespread today, but the fact that we don't hear as much about them suggests that they've become a bread-and-butter component of DevOps that no longer feels innovative or trendy.

7. Blockchain Fell Off the Screen

A similar trend played out this past year surrounding blockchain. Once a much-hyped technology domain that analysts (including myself) predicted would have a major impact on the enterprise, interest in blockchain has now receded to the point that it feels almost irrelevant. Gaining blockchain development skills is no longer sound career advice for software developers.

This trend wasn't totally new as of 2024; blockchain has been gradually losing its luster for several years. But 2024 is arguably the year when the blockchain fad finally receded into near-total irrelevance (despite what some die-hard crypto entrepreneurs might claim).