Exploring the turnaway phenomenon: An investigation with software developers.

Abstract

Career abandonment (turnaway) among software developers may be associated with many factors related to the profession. Identifying and understanding how these factors can affect those professionals is essential for organizations to design more effective retention policies and better understand the phenomenon. This thesis aims to (i) identify motivators that may be associated with the turnaway phenomenon among software developers, and (ii) investigate how these motivators are associated to abandon the profession for currently active software developers. With those objectives in mind, we conducted four empirical studies. Two qualitative studies included interviews with 25 Brazilian former software developers for identifying general and specic motivators; a case study with career anchors with 24 of those participants; and a survey with almost 250 Brazilian developers for validating a theoretical model for developer turnaway. We have identied 57 different motivators, among which the most cited general motivators were professional stagnation, lack of nancial recognition, lack of professional regulation, and work overload, among others. Regarding specic motivators, we recognized rework, unstable requirements and fear of obsolescence, among others. We classied those motivators into ve software engineering dimensions, mainly: software engineering professional practice, management, and economics. We also mapped traditional career anchors to the motivators mentioned by the former developers. Finally, from the survey, we con- rmed the close association between software development-specic issues and the intention to abandon the career. The results suggest several hypotheses to further research, relating turnaway to the types of activities of software development. We hope these results contribute to devising effective strategies for organizations to retain developers, additionally minimizing the social cost of turnaway to those developers.