Helping Decision‑Makers Say Yes to Kotlin

Alyona Chernyaeva

Guest post by Urs Peter, Senior Software Engineer and JetBrains-certified Kotlin Trainer. For readers who’d like a more structured way to build Kotlin skills, Urs also leads the Kotlin Upskill Program at Xebia Academy.

This is the fourth post in The Ultimate Guide to Successfully Adopting Kotlin in a Java-Dominated Environment, a series that follows how Kotlin adoption grows among real teams, from a single developer’s curiosity to company-wide transformation.

All parts in the series:

1. Getting Started With Kotlin for Java Developers
2. Evaluating Kotlin in Real Projects
3. Growing Kotlin Adoption in Your Company

Persuading Management: Building the Business Case for Kotlin

Once you have achieved a critical mass of Kotlin supporters, presenting a compelling business case to management requires moving beyond code demonstrations to hard data and strategic considerations.

Market momentum and industry validation

Kotlin has demonstrated remarkable growth, with 2.5 million developers worldwide now using the language. This represents sustained adoption since Google’s pivotal 2017 announcement declaring Kotlin the official language for Android development, followed by Spring Boot’s embrace of Kotlin as a first-class citizen.

Source: Keynote KotlinConf 2025

The momentum has accelerated significantly. Spring Boot, which commands approximately 90% of the backend market share, formalized a strategic partnership with JetBrains in 2025 – a clear signal of Kotlin’s enterprise viability and long-term trajectory.

Framing the strategic decision

While these adoption metrics demonstrate Kotlin’s market validation, management decisions require a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis. Technology adoption at scale involves significant investments in training, tooling, and potential migration efforts. The key is presenting both the tangible benefits and realistic implementation costs, allowing leadership to make an informed strategic decision rather than a purely technical one.

The business gains unlocked by embracing Kotlin

These are the business gains when choosing Kotlin:

Some words on developer happiness

Looking at my career, I was greatly rewarded for letting go of my attachment to the seemingly safe career choice of Java. Daily, I’m empowered with a language that is a joy to work with and helps me express what I want to achieve in the best possible way, concisely, safely, and productively. 

It’s a fact that, personally, I’ve become a happier developer (human ;-)?) using Kotlin. Though this is subjective, developer satisfaction data tells the same unmistakable story:

Backend developers who migrate from Java to Kotlin report dramatically higher happiness levels across every major industry survey. 

• Stack Overflow’s Developer Survey data shows Kotlin consistently ranking among the top five most loved languages at ~63% satisfaction, significantly outpacing Java’s ~54% rating.
• The Mercedes-Benz.io backend team documented “significantly more concise code than Java, reducing boilerplate and improving readability” while achieving measurable productivity gains in their microservices architecture.
• Tyler Russell, a backend developer with 15 years of Java experience, reports after four years with Kotlin: “I really like Kotlin… it feels like it enables productivity significantly more than it hinders it”, and never wants to return to Java.

Corporate Kotlin to Java backend migrations demonstrate that these happiness improvements scale effectively across enterprise environments. 

• N26’s backend engineering team converted 60% of their microservices to Kotlin within two years, reporting enhanced developer satisfaction and reduced production issues.
• ING’s five-year backend adoption journey shows sustained organic growth, with 8% of their 20,000+ technical staff repositories now using Kotlin, demonstrating that developers voluntarily choose Kotlin when given the option.

The cost / return on investment of embracing Kotlin:

These are the investments required for choosing Kotlin. 

One of the most common concerns when considering Kotlin adoption is the perceived shortage of experienced Kotlin developers. But rather than a roadblock, this can be a strategic advantage:

• ✅ Fast upskilling for Java developers
  Kotlin is designed to be intuitive for Java developers. With the right guidance, most can become productive in just 2–3 weeks.
• ✅ Kotlin attracts high-quality developers
  Those who actively pursue Kotlin are often curious, modern, and quality-driven – traits you want in your engineering team.
• ✅ Kotlin enhances your company image
  Adopting Kotlin signals that you embrace modern, forward-looking technology, which helps attract top-tier talent.
• ✅ Kotlin boosts developer happiness and retention

Kotlin developers consistently report higher job satisfaction, making it easier to retain engaged and motivated team members.

In short: Kotlin isn’t just a smart tech choice – it’s a strategic people decision.

Up next in the series

We shift focus from convincing developers to persuading decision-makers. The next post shows how to build a compelling business case for Kotlin adoption, grounded in real data and measurable outcomes. You’ll learn how to translate developer wins into management arguments, link productivity gains to cost savings, and demonstrate why Kotlin is more than a technical upgrade – it’s a strategic move for teams and companies alike.

Urs Peter

Urs is a seasoned software engineer, solution architect, conference speaker, and trainer with over 20 years of experience in building resilient, scalable, and mission-critical systems, mostly involving Kotlin and Scala.

Besides his job as a consultant, he is also a passionate trainer and author of a great variety of courses ranging from language courses for Kotlin and Scala to architectural trainings such as Microservices and Event-Driven Architectures.

As a people person by nature, he loves to share knowledge and inspire and get inspired by peers on meetups and conferences. Urs is a JetBrains certified Kotlin trainer.

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