Towards Understanding Barriers and Mitigation Strategies of Software Engineers with Non-traditional Educational and Occupational Backgrounds

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Barnes, Tavian, Lee, Ken Jen, Tavares, Cristina, Rodríguez-Pérez, Gema, Nagappan, Meiyappan
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2022
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author Barnes, Tavian
Lee, Ken Jen
Tavares, Cristina
Rodríguez-Pérez, Gema
Nagappan, Meiyappan
author_facet Barnes, Tavian
Lee, Ken Jen
Tavares, Cristina
Rodríguez-Pérez, Gema
Nagappan, Meiyappan
contents The traditional path to a software engineering career usually involves a post-secondary diploma in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field. However, many individuals working as software engineers take a non-traditional path to their careers, starting from other industries or fields of study. This paper explores the barriers that individuals with non-traditional educational and occupational backgrounds face when pursuing a software engineering career and proposes potential strategies to overcome those barriers. A two-stage methodology was used, consisting of an exploratory study followed by a follow-up survey. The exploratory study consisted of a grounded-theory-based qualitative analysis of relevant Reddit data to yield a framework around the barriers and possible mitigation strategies. These findings were then supplemented through a follow-up survey. Understanding these barriers and what strategies could be effective is an important step towards making software engineering more accessible to individuals with non-traditional backgrounds. In addition to fostering functional diversity, this might also serve to tackle labor shortages within the software engineering industry.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2204_04318
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Understanding Barriers and Mitigation Strategies of Software Engineers with Non-traditional Educational and Occupational Backgrounds
Barnes, Tavian
Lee, Ken Jen
Tavares, Cristina
Rodríguez-Pérez, Gema
Nagappan, Meiyappan
Software Engineering
Computers and Society
D.2; K.4.2
The traditional path to a software engineering career usually involves a post-secondary diploma in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field. However, many individuals working as software engineers take a non-traditional path to their careers, starting from other industries or fields of study. This paper explores the barriers that individuals with non-traditional educational and occupational backgrounds face when pursuing a software engineering career and proposes potential strategies to overcome those barriers. A two-stage methodology was used, consisting of an exploratory study followed by a follow-up survey. The exploratory study consisted of a grounded-theory-based qualitative analysis of relevant Reddit data to yield a framework around the barriers and possible mitigation strategies. These findings were then supplemented through a follow-up survey. Understanding these barriers and what strategies could be effective is an important step towards making software engineering more accessible to individuals with non-traditional backgrounds. In addition to fostering functional diversity, this might also serve to tackle labor shortages within the software engineering industry.
title Towards Understanding Barriers and Mitigation Strategies of Software Engineers with Non-traditional Educational and Occupational Backgrounds
topic Software Engineering
Computers and Society
D.2; K.4.2
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.04318