What kind of Java developer are you? Take our Java Quiz to find out!

What’s your Javatar?

The Java platform can be used in so many different ways that there are all sorts of different personalities you might come across. That’s why we decided to create 16 cheeky caricatures you will encounter at JAX London 🙂

What sort of Java developer are you?

Java Developerator
Java developers are luminaries of their craft, no question about it. Some might even say they’re pedantic and domineering. This is also partly true for Java Developerators, who want to monitor the entire development process from the planning phase through deployment and have it under almost dictatorial control. If you slow these DevOps heroes down a little, they can be of tremendous benefit to the company; they implement continuous delivery pipelines, Kubernetes clusters, infrastructure as code and many other valuable standards from the DevOps world.

Java Coder
The Java coder lives to write Java. It doesn’t matter what for – the main thing is that objects, annotations and strings are logically linked, and the classes are passed in eighteen instances. Without the Java Coder there are no applications. Without them there are no programs. Without them, nothing makes sense.

Neurotic Tester
Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean nobody’s following you. And just because you’re a pessimist, doesn’t mean there’s not a bug in the code. Or an infestation. The Neurotic Tester doesn’t trust themselves or automated tests – they’d love to run every test script imaginable after every line of code. After all, you can never be sure your code is squeaky clean and error free. Of course, this sometimes leads to eye-rolling and pranksters planting obvious bugs in the code, but they just don’t understand.

Enterprise Guru
The Enterprise Guru is at home in big business. They take care of application development in the cloud and like to break monoliths down into microservices. They know the book Domain Driven Design by heart and talk about Ubiquitous Language and Bounded Context to anyone who will listen. Without them, nothing in the company works – the online shop goes down and the company’s core systems implode.

Android Geek
Android Geeks are newborn stars shining in the sky of software development. For them, the world no longer revolves around servers or computers, but mobile devices. Why bother with large applications and web interfaces when you can pack everything into an app and download it from the Play Store? And that all this is possible with Java – thanks to cross-platform frameworks without crutches like Swift or even Objective-C – is a revelation for Android Geeks. They’ve seen the future, and the future is mobile.

Lambda Cowboy
Have you ever heard of catamorphisms, anamorphisms and hylomorphisms? No? Then you wouldn’t make much of a conversationalist for a real Lambda Cowboy, at least not when it comes to “real programming” (or as they sometimes call it, “functional programming”). Since Java 8 introduced Lambdas a little over five years ago, the number of coders using Java as a functional programming language has been growing, even if other functional JVM languages like Scala, Frege or Clojure can do it muuuuuuch better.

IoT Tinkerer
Does your smart home welcome you back after work with the lighting set to “relax”, a freshly brewed espresso, and your favorite playlist playing? If so, you’re an IoT Tinkerer! IoT inventors are the Da Vincis of software development – with their homespun combinations of sensors and Raspberry Pis, they find miraculous and innovative approaches to make the most of their software and hardware. Do you think using voice commands in your car is amazing? There’s no doubt that the prototype was the brainchild of an IoT Tinkerer.

Serverless Surfer
The Serverless Surfer has his head in the cloud. This experienced specialist has long since left the shallow waters of physical servers behind and set out upon the endless vastness of “FaaS”, “SaaS”, and “PaaS”. If you want to hit him where it hurts, remind him that AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure – the cloud – are just servers managed by someone else. Hang loose, bruh, hang serverloose…

Agilist
The Agilist has devoted their life to an almost unspeakable purpose – getting developers to talk to each other. To this end, the IT master of ceremonies has a wide range of magical tools at his disposal – Scrum, Kanban, Pomodoro, XP, and many more. The most ardent Agilists might even force developers to sit together in front of the same screen and write code. Fortunately, not all Agilists are so mean…

Machine Learning Maniac
Learning like a maniac! We all had that one friend who practically lived in the basement or garage, fiddling with his robots. Well that’s not what a Machine Learning Maniac looks like. Instead, they feed neural networks and machine learning algorithms with data and are delighted when the one cat in a stack of dog photos is correctly identified. They’d never say so, but some of them secretly dream of using their AI to find real friends and have a real conversation for once.

JavaScript Defender
The JavaScript Defender is often seen by Java purists as a traitor to the cause, the term often being thrown around in (Java) coder circles as an insult. However, if you truly understand JavaScript, you shouldn’t let your narrow-minded coworkers bring you down. After all, the JavaScript Defender is the one who gets to deploy the most beautiful frontend for their application once all is said and done.

JVM Mystic
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to light incense sticks on the JVM, and even the gentle tones of a sitar can’t put a JEP into words. But the JVM Mystic gladly speaks in tongues, uh, sorry, likes to develop in different languages. Whether Scala, Kotlin, Groovy, Frege, Clojure, Ceylon or Xtend, nothing is too exotic for the JVM Mystic. However, it takes a lot of rich herbal treats before even the JVM Mystic can stomach running PHP or “Quercus” on the JVM.

Big (Data) Boss
Why go for half measures when you can show the world you mean business? Analysts have known for years that data is the currency of today and the future. Why you might want to know which app Giggles McNulty checks at 4 a.m. is the wrong question. Why shouldn’t you want to know? Data is power, power is money, and money is… well, power! The Big Data Boss collects everything he can get his hands on and evaluates it with visualization frameworks and dashboards. In the end, he can present the perfect product for the perfect consumer. And the perfect product is exactly what he’s got to offer, and the perfect customer is… everyone!

Open Source Hippie
Hey man, got some code? Paying for good software isn’t so common in the 11111100011 community of Open Source Hippies. They see code as common property that should be returned to the community. It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds at first – after all, many people work on lots of projects, like Kubernetes, on a voluntary basis. How can you put a price tag on them? Exactly! But anyone who believes only a few software purists stuck in the 1960s think the open source idea is appealing is in for a shock. There are Open Source Hippies in many companies, even some Forbes 500 companies have found a certain joy in making their internally used products available to the world out there. For free. This may run counter to the basic capitalist idea, but only as long as you don’t offer a paid support model…

API Strategist
Writing software and services yourself has hardly paid off since the advent of microservices. The API Strategist rightly asks himself why he’s reinventing the wheel and prefers to make extensive plans explaining where they can upgrade their own software project with external services via an interface. Payment system? Let’s take provider X. Shopping cart? Supplier Y already has something suitable for that. Of course, it’s important to maintain an overview of the whole process of tying up glue code. This is where the API Strategist steps up and becomes the API Manager; they always knows at any given time which service is connected from where and when it’s worthwhile to change APIs or even – shudder – make their precious data available themselves via an API.

Kotlin Know-it-all
There was a time when Java was considered “hot shit”. For the Kotlin Know-It-All, this is ancient history. These days, using the JVM needs a different programming language, and since Scala, JRuby and Clojure are obviously MUCH too old (and complicated), Kotlin suits their lifestyle and need for quick results. Some Java purists like to use the word “snot-nosed” in this context, but even know-it-alls are right once in a while. Kotlin is innovative and has fought for its right to exist. The development of mobile apps for Android operating systems is no longer a pure Java domain thanks to Kotlin. However, the question is whether or not this still plays a major role, because with Flutter the next generation of app developers is being raised in a completely different way.