Developer English guide
Should You Code in English or Spanish? The Honest Answer
Your code should be in English. Your team conversations can stay in Spanish. Here is why, and what this means for your career.
Key Takeaways
- Code in English: variable names, function names, comments, commit messages, and error messages.
- Use whatever language your team uses for standups, Slack, pull request descriptions, and documentation.
- English-first code is the industry standard because most libraries, tools, and open source ecosystems are built in English.
- Spanish-speaking teams that code in English still benefit from using Spanish in meetings: it is faster and clearer.
- The real gap is not in variable names. It is in being able to explain your work, ask questions, and participate in technical discussions in English.
This is one of the most common questions Spanish-speaking developers ask, and it deserves a direct answer.
The short version: write your code in English. Speak whatever language your team speaks in meetings and Slack.
But the longer version is more interesting, because the real question is not about variable names. It is about what kind of developer you want to be.
Your code should be in English
El código se escribe en inglés
This is not a preference. It is the practical reality of how software is built.
Every library you use was written in English. Every error message is in English. Every Stack Overflow answer, every GitHub issue, every API documentation page is in English. When your code mixes English identifiers from libraries with Spanish variable names you have written yourself, readability breaks down.
Beyond readability, there is collaboration. If you ever join a company with developers from Brazil, India, Poland, or the US, or contribute to an open source project, your English code is immediately readable by everyone. Spanish code is not.
Variable names
Avoid
const usuarioActivo = true;
Standard
const isUserActive = true;
Function names
Avoid
function obtenerPedido(id) {}
Standard
function getOrder(id) {}
Comments
Avoid
// Verificar si el token expiró
Standard
// Check if the token has expired
Commit messages
Avoid
Arreglar bug en el flujo de pago
Standard
Fix null reference in checkout flow
Your team language is a different question
El idioma del equipo es otra decisión
If your entire team is Spanish-speaking, there is nothing wrong with running your standup, Slack channels, and pull request comments in Spanish. You will be faster and clearer. Some of the best engineering teams in Latin America work this way.
The exception is documentation and public communication. If your README, API documentation, or incident reports might ever be read by someone outside your team, write them in English.
A practical rule: internal conversations can be in Spanish, anything that lives in the repository should be in English.
| Context | Language |
|---|---|
| Variable names, functions, classes | English |
| Code comments | English |
| Commit messages | English |
| README and documentation | English (if international) |
| Daily standup | Team language |
| Slack messages to teammates | Team language |
| Pull request descriptions | Team language |
| Incident postmortems | English (if shared externally) |
The real challenge is not variable names
El verdadero reto no son los nombres de variables
If you are asking whether to code in English or Spanish, you have already figured out the easy part. The harder part is what happens when you join a team where English is the working language.
In that environment, the variable names are the least of your worries. What actually trips developers up is:
Explaining a technical decision in a pull request. Saying 'I think we should use a queue here because the current approach will not scale' requires fluency, not just grammar.
Participating in a technical interview. When a senior engineer asks you to walk through your approach to a system design problem, being able to think out loud in English under pressure is a skill you have to practice.
Pushing back in a meeting. Saying 'I am not confident we can finish this in one sprint' or 'this approach has a tradeoff I want to flag' requires confidence and specific vocabulary.
This is the English that matters for your career.
What this means for your career
Qué significa esto para tu carrera
Companies that pay the highest salaries for software developers overwhelmingly work in English. Remote positions at US and European companies, international startups, and global tech companies all require you to communicate in English, not just write English variable names.
The developers who move into those roles are not necessarily the ones with the best English grammar. They are the ones who have practiced enough to explain a problem clearly, ask a good clarifying question, and participate in a technical discussion without freezing.
If that is where you want to go, the path is deliberate practice of the English you actually use at work: standups, code reviews, pull requests, and technical interviews.
The short answer
- Code in English: it is the industry standard and it makes your code usable by any team in the world.
- Run your team in Spanish if that is what your team speaks: it is faster and clearer.
- The English that will actually move your career forward is the English you use in meetings, pull requests, and interviews.
Ready to practice your English at work?
Lingua-e has interactive exercises built around real developer conversations: standups, code reviews, retrospectives, and more. Practice until it comes naturally.
Try Lingua-e for freePractice the English that matters for your career
Written by
Roxana LafuenteLingua-e's founder
Roxana Lafuente is a software engineer with 8+ years of experience. At the beginning of her career, even though she had already passed the First Certificate in English, she still froze every time she had to speak up in the daily standup. That was a gap nobody was fixing. After 2,000+ standups, she figured out what actually builds fluency: practice that looks like your real work. She built Lingua-e so other developers wouldn't have to take the long road to feel confident working in an international development environment.