Abstract
The development of complex software systems requires a mixture of various technical and non-technical competencies. While some guidelines exist which technical knowledge is required to make a good software engineer, there is a lack of insight as to which non-technical or soft skills are necessary to master complex software projects. This paper proposes a body of skills (SWEBOS) for soft-ware engineering. The collection of necessary skills is developed on the basis of a clear, data-driven research design. The resulting required soft skills for software engineering are described precisely and semantically rich in a three-level structure. This approach guarantees that skills are not just characterized in a broad and general manner, but rather they are specifically adapted to the domain of software engineering.
Highlights
Software is a core ingredient of nearly any part of our everyday life
Such a subject didactics would encompass competency profiles which constitute the targets for software engineering education, in conjunction with didactical approaches that are likely to support the achievement of these goals
While there are some guidelines as to which technical expertise is required for a software engineer, e.g. in the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) [2, 3], the non-technical side of skills is less well understood
Summary
Software is a core ingredient of nearly any part of our everyday life. Software systems, need to be developed by highly skilled individuals. Education in software engineering in order to acquire and exercise the required skills plays an important role in university education Universities laid their main emphasis in software engineering education on technical expertise, such as programming or testing. While there are some guidelines as to which technical expertise is required for a software engineer, e.g. in the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) [2, 3], the non-technical side of skills is less well understood. This contribution presents a framework to describe software engineering competencies that spans various degrees of abstraction. As a consequence of our findings, we argue that it is reasonable to distinguish generic non-technical skills, such as presentation skills, from context-sensitive non-technical skills that exhibit a special flavor in software engineering and in conjunction with specific technical skills
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