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Analysis of Software Engineering Skills Gap in the Industry

Published: 29 December 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Many practitioners might struggle with becoming productive in different software engineering (SE) roles due to misalignment of the skills learnt during the university time with what is expected in the industry. Companies spend significant resources to train the personnel, whose academic backgrounds are not only based on “computing disciplines”. Hiring properly trained practitioners allows employers to spend less time while incorporating them more efficiently into the workforce; for employees, knowing the most important skillset is helpful to increase their chance of employability. On the other hand, for academia, understanding the necessary skillset is critical to make curriculum updates. To achieve these objectives, we conducted a survey, which was responded to by 628 software practitioners, who completed their undergraduate degree in Turkey, working in 13 countries. This paper sheds light on the most important (hard and soft) skills in the industry by presenting various cross-factor analyses as well as their coverage in the academic curriculum (mostly in Turkish universities). The results showed that the most important skills are related to various factors such as profiles of the practitioners (e.g., SE role(s), work experience) and the characteristics of the product developed by the practitioner. The findings revealed that both academia and industry should invest in skills improvement: academia can make necessary educational updates according to industrial needs; whereas industry can provide practical experiences to students. By creating the awareness of the expected skillset, both practitioners and academics will benefit from the results, which help close the gaps that can and should be achieved through more Industry Academia Collaborations (IACs).

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Computing Education
ACM Transactions on Computing Education  Volume 23, Issue 1
March 2023
396 pages
EISSN:1946-6226
DOI:10.1145/3578368
  • Editor:
  • Amy J. Ko
Issue’s Table of Contents

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 December 2022
Online AM: 12 October 2022
Accepted: 07 October 2022
Revised: 02 August 2022
Received: 28 February 2021
Published in TOCE Volume 23, Issue 1

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Author Tags

  1. Hard skills
  2. soft skills
  3. knowledge area
  4. software engineering education
  5. industry-academia collaboration
  6. software industry
  7. practitioner survey

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  • (2024)A Personalized-based Study Guides Tool for Software Engineering Flipped ClassesAnais do IV Simpósio Brasileiro de Educação em Computação (EDUCOMP 2024)10.5753/educomp.2024.237402(31-41)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2024
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