Java has been "dying" for about as long as most of us have been writing code. So here is a fair question for 2026: how much Java work is actually out there?
Quite a lot. On October 6, 2026 we counted 1,503 open tech roles that name Java, at 277 companies (distinct roles, so one role posted in ten cities counts once). That is 12.8% of the 11,704 open tech roles we track, and more than a third of all hiring companies have at least one.
But the share is slipping, and the jobs may not look like the Java jobs you picture.
Slowly losing share
Among companies we have tracked since before mid-May, Java was named in 13.3% of the roles opened between early June and early August, and in 12.25% of the roles opened since early September. A one point drop in a few months. Not a collapse, but the direction is clear, and Kotlin (named in 517 roles) is drifting the same way, from 5.0% to 4.7%.
For context: Python is named in about 4,800 open roles, Go in about 2,250 and TypeScript in about 1,750. Java is fourth.
Who hires for it
| Company | Java roles | Share of their open roles |
|---|---|---|
| Databricks | 85 | 25% |
| Airwallex | 57 | 40% |
| Stripe | 53 | 30% |
| Snowflake | 53 | 36% |
| MongoDB | 50 | 51% |
| Toast | 43 | 66% |
| Adyen | 32 | 52% |
| Neo4j | 20 | 57% |
The pattern is data infrastructure and payments. On this board, databases, data platforms and money movement are where the JVM is busiest, and at Toast, Adyen, Neo4j and MongoDB, Java is in more than half of everything they are hiring for.
It is also spread wide. The top twelve Java employers hold 33% of Java roles (for Rust it was 57%), and 173 of the 277 companies have only one to three open.
What comes with it
Java rarely travels alone. Only 196 roles name Java and no other language. The usual company:
Python in 876 Java roles (58%)
AWS in 630
Kubernetes in 565
Go in 543 (more if you add roles tagged "Golang")
Kotlin in 295 and Scala in 186
Kafka in 263
Spring shows up less than you might expect: some form of Spring is named in 167 roles (11%), Spring Boot in 121. Maybe people stop listing the framework everyone assumes. But together with how often Python and Go sit next to Java, it suggests these are mostly not classic enterprise Spring shops, but platforms where Java is one backend language among several.
Where we can separate a job's core stack from the things it mentions in passing, Java is core in 446 of 750 roles, about 60%.
The office question
Java jobs are hybrid jobs. Half of them (749) are hybrid, 449 are remote within a country or region, 278 are onsite, and only 27 are labelled remote from anywhere. If you want a role open from anywhere, Java is a hard place to look; remote within a region is the realistic version.
Pay, and getting in
713 Java roles publish a yearly US dollar band. The median floor is $170,000 and the median ceiling $235,000. That floor is essentially level with Python ($168,650) and Go ($168,000). Kotlin sits a little lower at a $160,000 floor.
For people early in their careers, Java is friendlier than average: 76 roles (5.1%) are junior, against 4.6% across all open tech roles. 67% are senior.
If you write Java
The work is in data platforms and payments. If you want a Java-heavy team, look at the companies where it is half their hiring, not the ones where it is one tag of twenty.
Python next to Java is the norm, not a bonus. Most of these roles name both.
Expect to be in an office some days.
Kotlin is close enough to count, but on our board it is not where the growth is either.
Every role on remoet.dev/jobs carries its stack, and starring the companies you care about means their new roles come to you as they post.
The usual caveats
We match "Java" in a stack that a model extracts from each post, and we excluded JavaScript. A stack list cannot tell "Java or Kotlin" from "Java and Kotlin". The share trend compares roles opened in two windows at companies we tracked through both, so it shows direction, not market size. Salaries cover only roles that publish a band. All of it is one day, October 6, 2026.
If you write Java for a living and think we have this wrong, tell us in Discord. Java people usually do.
