Who are the top 10 software engineers in the world?
Asked "Who are the top 10 software engineers in the world?", ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Perplexity named 30 distinct tools across 5 answers on September 8, 2026, and 11 of them in two or more answers, and the engines did not agree; the closest to a consensus, Git, was named by only 3 of 5.
11 of 30 names confirmed · named in 2 or more of 5 answers · asked September 8, 2026 · 5 engines
There is no official ranking of the top 10 software engineers in the world, as it depends on various criteria such as impact, influence, and contributions to the field. However, some of the most influential software engineers in history include Linus Torvalds, Dennis Ritchie, and Bjarne Stroustrup, who have made significant contributions to operating systems, programming languages, and software development. Other notable engineers include Margaret Hamilton, Ken Thompson, and Donald Knuth, who have shaped the field of computer science and software engineering.
- 1C programming languagenamed in 3 of 5 answers
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- 2Gitnamed in 3 of 5 answers
- 3World Wide Webnamed in 3 of 5 answers
- 4C++named in 3 of 5 answers
- 5Javanamed in 3 of 5 answers
- 6Linux kernelnamed in 2 of 5 answers
- 7Unixnamed in 2 of 5 answers
- 8TensorFlownamed in 2 of 5 answers
- 9Go programming languagenamed in 2 of 5 answers
- 10Apollo space programnamed in 2 of 5 answers
- 11Pythonnamed in 2 of 5 answers
- 12ChatGPTnamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 13DALL·Enamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 14GPT-4named in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 15Unix operating systemnamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 16MapReducenamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 17B programming languagenamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 18Bigtablenamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 19Nvidianamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 20FFmpegnamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 21IBM Watsonnamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 22Spannernamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 23UTF-8named in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 24Einstein AInamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
- 25QEMUnamed in 1 of 5 answersone answer
The full measurement
- The position each of the 5 engines gave all 30 names.
- How many of the 5 answers named each of them.
- 185 sampled observations behind this ranking, and where the engines disagree.
- Fan-out — the query each engine actually searched.
- Every citation, and the sources nobody cited.