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State of Dev in South Korea 2026

Compensation, tech stacks, AI, visas, and what it's actually like to work in Korea. Everything 166 developers told us, in aggregate.

Survey conducted June 15 – July 29, 2026 Β· fully anonymous

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166

developers answered

in Korea and abroad

β‚©60–70M

median total compensation

77 working respondents

70%

of shipped code is AI-written

median across 130 answers

What the data says

  1. A bilingual survey reached people who are not bilingualEnglish and Korean proficiency by group
  2. Most of the pay climb happens at year sevenMedian compensation by years of professional experience
  3. Who you work for moves pay more than how long you have workedMedian compensation by employer type
  4. The visa that ties you to one employer pays the leastMedian compensation by residency status
  5. The best-paid developers are the ones in meetingsMedian compensation by hours spent in meetings
  6. One in four at a Korean employer reports discriminationDiscrimination reported at work, by employer type
  7. The pay gap comes with a satisfaction gap, and a language tradeJob satisfaction and Korean at work, by employer type
  8. AI writes most of everyone's code; only the enthusiasm differsAI-written code and belief in AI, by years of experience
  9. Korean comes slowly, and mostly after year sevenKorean proficiency by years lived in Korea (international residents)
  10. The visa ladder is real, and it takes about five yearsResidency status by years lived in Korea
  11. A degree shows up in whether you are working, not in what you earnWork and pay by highest qualification
  12. The languages that pay best are the ones fewest people useMedian compensation by programming language used
  13. Job hunters write Python, the employed write TypeScriptLanguages used, by whether people are working
  14. Korean respondents let AI write far more of their codeHow much AI writes, by respondent group
  15. Claude Code everywhere, Copilot mostly among internationalsWhich AI tools each group reaches for
  16. Learning Korean trades one hard thing for anotherWhat is hardest, by Korean proficiency (international residents)
  17. Korean helps less with friendship than you would expectFriend groups by Korean proficiency (international residents)
  18. Korean lowers every barrier, including the visa oneHiring friction by Korean proficiency
  19. Newcomers feel the closed door, everyone feels the languageHiring friction by years lived in Korea
  20. The keenest are stopped by visas, the hesitant by payBarriers by how strongly they want to come
  21. The closer the move, the more it is about the visaBarriers by how soon people plan to move
  22. English confidence, not pay, decides who wants a global roleAppetite for global work by English proficiency

Read the report

  1. 01Who answeredWho took the survey: where they live, where they're from, and how long they've been writing software.
  2. 02Work & employmentEmployers, working conditions, and pay. Questions in this section were answered by respondents currently working.
  3. 03Tech stackThe languages, frameworks, and platforms developers in and around Korea actually use.
  4. 04AIHow much of the code shipped in Korea is written by AI, which tools people reach for, and how they feel about it.
  5. 05Life in KoreaBeyond the keyboard: friends, hobbies, and the best and hardest parts of living in Korea.
  6. 06Korean developers & global companies25 Korean developers answered this chapter about English-first and global companies.
  7. 07International developers in Korea106 international developers living in Korea answered this chapter about getting here and getting hired.
  8. 08Developers abroad35 developers living outside Korea answered this chapter about the move they're considering.
  9. 09MethodologyHow the survey was run, how the numbers are counted, and where to get the raw aggregates.
  10. 10ConclusionThank you for reading, and thank you to everyone who answered.

Work with the data

Every number in this report comes from one aggregated, anonymous dataset. Take it and check our work, or ask an assistant to dig through it with you.

Download the JSONFull aggregates, question by questionView as MarkdownThe same figures as plain tablesOpen in ClaudeAsk questions about the resultsOpen in ChatGPTAsk questions about the results

Use it, just say where it came from

Quote these figures, chart them, write them up, build a product on them, including commercially. Published under CC BY 4.0, which asks one thing in return: name the survey and link back, so your readers can check the numbers themselves.

State of Dev in South Korea 2026, Dev Korea (2026). https://dev-korea.com/state-of-dev/2026/results