ABSTRACT
Background: Software quality assurance (QA) is carried out in tandem with software development. Essentially, QA activities are conducted in hopes of assessing the extent to which a software product aligns with predefined requirements. Although QA includes highly technical tasks, much like software development, it remains largely a human-centered endeavor. Consequently, soft skills can play a significant role in contributing to the success of a project and product quality, as well as boosting the productivity of QA professionals. Aim: Our objective is to investigate: (i) the most sought-after soft skills for QA professionals, (ii) potential correlations among these in-demand soft skills, (iii) variations in soft skill requirements based on the seniority level of positions, and (iv) potential differences in soft skills expectations according to the size of the hiring companies. Our analysis is centered around organizations in Brazil. Method: We looked for soft skills in 253 job advertisements from Brazilian companies. Our data extraction process followed an inductive, data-driven approach that included both manual and automated steps. Results: approximately 72% of the job advertisements list at least one soft skill. We identified 35 soft skills, among which communication-related soft skills appear to be the most sought-after. We found that companies of all sizes highly value communication skills for QA professionals at every career stage. Conclusions: Our findings underscore the critical role of communication skills. The results of our study hold potential value for QA professionals in Brazil seeking to enhance their employability and provide insights to those tasked with staffing, curriculum design, and professional development.
- 2014. IEEE Standard for Software Quality Assurance Processes. IEEE Std 730-2014 (Revision of IEEE Std 730-2002) (2014), 1–138.Google Scholar
- S.T. Acuna, N. Juristo, and A.M. Moreno. 2006. Emphasizing Human Capabilities in Software Development. IEEE Software 23, 2 (2006), 94–101.Google ScholarDigital Library
- H. Akoglu. 2018. User’s Guide to Correlation Coefficients. Turkish Journal of Emergency Medicine 18, 3 (2018), 91–93.Google ScholarCross Ref
- M. Ardelt. 2000. Still Stable after All These Years? Personality Stability Theory Revisited. Social Psychology Quarterly 63, 4 (2000), 392–405.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jiří Balcar. 2016. Is it Better to Invest in Hard or Soft Skills?The Economic and Labour Relations Review 27, 4 (2016), 453–470.Google Scholar
- Pierre Bourque, Richard E. Fairley, and IEEE Computer Society. 2014. Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK(R)): Version 3.0 (3rd ed.). IEEE.Google Scholar
- H. K. Buhrer. 2003. Software Development: What It is, What It Should Be, and How to Get There. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes 28, 2 (2003), 5.Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. Burbekova. 2021. Soft Skills as the Most In-Demand Skills of Future IT Specialists. In IEEE International Conference on Smart Information Systems and Technologies (SIST). 1–5.Google ScholarCross Ref
- A. T. S. Calazans, R. A. Paldes, E. T. S. Masson, I. S. Brito, K. F. Rezende, E. Braosi, and N. Pereira. 2017. Software Requirements Analyst Profile: A Descriptive Study of Brazil and Mexico. In IEEE 25th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE). 204–212.Google Scholar
- R. N. Charette. 2005. Why Software Fails]. IEEE Spectrum 42, 9 (2005), 42–49.Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Daneva, C. Wang, and P. Hoener. 2017. What the Job Market Wants from Requirements Engineers? An Empirical Analysis of Online Job Ads from the Netherlands. In ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). 448–453.Google Scholar
- R. D. Drennan. 1996. Statistics for Archaeologists: A Commonsense Approach. Springer, Chapter Relating a Measurement Variable to Another Measurement Variable, 203–226.Google Scholar
- S. Fareri, N. Melluso, F. Chiarello, and G. Fantoni. 2021. SkillNER: Mining and mapping soft skills from any text. Expert Systems with Applications 184 (2021), 115544.Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. Feldman. 2005. Quality Assurance: Much More than Testing: Good QA is Not Only about Technology, but Also Methods and Approaches.Queue 3, 1 (2005), 26–29.Google Scholar
- R. Florea and V. Stray. 2019. The Skills that Employers look for in Software Testers. Software Quality Journal 27, 4 (2019), 1449– 1479.Google ScholarCross Ref
- M. Galster, A. Mitrovic, S. Malinen, and J. Holland. 2022. What Soft Skills Does the Software Industry *Really* Want? An Exploratory Study of Software Positions in New Zealand. In Proceedings of the 16th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). ACM, 272–282.Google Scholar
- A. F. Hendarman and J. H. Tjakraatmadja. 2012. Relationship among Soft Skills, Hard Skills, and Innovativeness of Knowledge Workers in the Knowledge Economy Era. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 52 (2012), 35–44.Google ScholarCross Ref
- A. Herrmann. 2013. Requirements Engineering in Practice: There Is No Requirements Engineer Position. In Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. Springer, 347–361.Google Scholar
- Mohamad Kassab, Phillip Laplante, Joanna Defranco, Valdemar Vicente Graciano Neto, and Giuseppe Destefanis. 2021. Exploring the Profiles of Software Testing Jobs in the United States. IEEE Access 9 (2021), 68905–68916.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Gerardo Matturro. 2013. Soft Skills in Software Engineering: A Study of its Demand by Software Companies in Uruguay. In 6th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE). IEEE, 133–136.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Glenford J. Myers, Corey Sandler, and Tom Badgett. 2011. The Art of Software Testing. Wiley. 240 pages.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Brazilian Association of Software Companies (ABES). 2022. Brazilian Software Market Study - Overview and Trends. Technical Report. Available online at https://abes.com.br/en/dados-do-setor/; Accessed May 2023.Google Scholar
- M. Orsted. 2000. Software development engineer in Microsoft. A subjective view of soft skills required. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering. 539–540.Google ScholarCross Ref
- D. Parnas. 2011. Software Engineering - Missing in Action: A Personal Perspective. Computer 44, 10 (2011), 54–58.Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Rabelo, A. Lopes, W. Mendes, C. de Souza, K. Gama, D. Monteiro, and G. Pinto. 2022. The Role of Non-Technical Skills in the Software Development Market. In Proceedings of the XXXVI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering. ACM, 31–40.Google Scholar
- Caitlin Sadowski, Margaret-Anne Storey, and Robert Feldt. 2019. A Software Development Productivity Framework. Apress, 39–47.Google Scholar
- Christoph Treude and Fernando Figueira Filho. 2019. How Team Awareness Influences Perceptions of Developer Productivity. Apress, 169–178.Google Scholar
- Stefan Wagner and Emerson Murphy-Hill. 2019. Factors That Influence Productivity: A Checklist. Apress, 69–84.Google Scholar
- C. Wang, P. Cui, M. Daneva, and M. Kassab. 2018. Understanding What Industry Wants from Requirements Engineers: An Exploration of RE Jobs in Canada. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). ACM, 10.Google Scholar
- C. Wang, Y. Tang, P. Liang, M. Daneva, and M. van Sinderen. 2020. What Industry Wants from Requirements Engineers in China? An Exploratory and Comparative Study on RE Job Ads. In Proceedings of the 14th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). ACM.Google ScholarDigital Library
- C. Wohlin, P. Runeson, M. Höst, M. C. Ohlsson, B. Regnell, and A. Wesslén. 2012. Experimentation in Software Engineering. Springer. 236 pages.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Ticket to Ride: A Journey Through the Most In-Demand Soft Skills for QA Professionals in Brazil
Recommendations
Understanding the Most In-demand Soft Skills in Requirements Engineering Practice: Insights from Two Focus Groups
EASE '19: Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering[Context] Research on the professional occupation of Requirements Engineering (RE) indicated soft skills as very important in employers' search for RE specialists. A very long list of soft skills came out of prior research, with proficiency in English ...
Soft skills required from software professionals in New Zealand
Abstract Context:Soft skills (e.g., communication) significantly contribute to software project success.
Objective:We aim to understand (a) what are relevant soft skills in software engineering, (b) ...
Highlights- We manually analyze 530 job adverts to identify soft skills.
- We provide ...
The requisite variety of skills for IT professionals
Introduction
IT professionals are beset by ongoing changes in technology and business practices. Some commentators have suggested that, in order to stay competitive, IT professionals should retool themselves to gain competency in specific in-demand ...
Comments