Skills development for software engineers: Systematic literature review

Abstract

Context: A good software professional must have technical and non-technical skills, that is, hard and soft skills, to deal with the diverse challenges they will encounter throughout their career. To make this possible, such professional must develop these abilities from the undergraduate. Objective: This research aims to identify the necessary soft skills for future Software Engineers and the teaching methodologies that contribute to developing such skills from the undergraduate, keeping the students motivated. In addition, this study proposes a framework to help educators conduct a teaching-learning process that includes hard and soft skills during the undergraduate of future Software Engineers. Methodology: A Systematic Literature Review was performed on six databases, resulting in 56 selected articles identifying the soft skills and the teaching methodologies desired to train Software Engineers. These were the base for the proposed framework. Results: We proposed a grouping of soft skills found in the literature totaling 33 soft skills. Furthermore, since were found, in the literature, definitions for only 23, this study also defined the other ten soft skills addressed. Regarding the most used and indicated methodologies for developing soft skills in undergraduate students, it was possible to organize them by the principal and auxiliary methodologies. Finally, a framework was proposed to assist in the development of hard and soft skills in undergraduate students, focused on Software Engineering, the FraSSD - Framework for Soft Skills Development. Conclusion: The proposed framework can contribute to educators’ critical thinking about applying the most effective teaching methodologies for developing hard and soft skills in an undergraduate class, improving the teaching-learning process. This study also evidences the most relevant soft skills for Software Engineers, encouraging the constant search to improve their soft skills aligned with their hard skills since graduation.