Software Demographics
Capers Jones · Encyclopedia of Software Engineering · 2002
Abstract As computers and software expand their roles in business, government, and military domains, there is an increasing demand for software workers. It would be useful to know the current software population in order to judge the magnitude of future opportunities. Unfortunately software demographic data is difficult to gather with accuracy. There is considerable ambiguity associated with the software workforce. More than 90 occupations have been identified within the software organizations of major corporations and government groups. There is no agreement from company to company as to the job titles of some of these occupation groups, or of the work that they perform. Further, there is no clearcut set of occupations that represent overall software workforce. For example, it is ambiguous whether software quality assurance personnel, software systems analysts, and software testing specialists are included in every demographic survey within the software domain. These issued are disscussed here.