Personality Profiles of Software Engineers and Their Software Quality Preferences

TL;DR

This study profiles Pakistani software engineers using MBTI and explores their preferences for software quality attributes, revealing dominant personality types and key quality considerations in software development.

Contribution

It establishes the first known personality profiles of Pakistani software engineers and links these profiles to their software quality attribute preferences.

Findings

Most engineers are introverted, sensing, thinking, judging.

Usability and functionality are the top software quality priorities.

Dominant personality type identified in the sample.

Abstract

Studies related to human aspects in software engineering (SE) have been performed from different perspectives. These perspectives include the study of human factors in different phases of software life cycle, effect of team performance in software development, how can a personality trait suit a particular task, and about some other miscellaneous issues. This research work aims to establish personality profiles of Pakistani software engineers using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument. In this survey, we have collected personality profiles of 110 software engineers. Moreover, their preferences of software quality attributes have also been collected. Analysis of the study shows that the most prominent personality type is a combination of introversion, sensing, thinking and judging. Investigative results indicate that most of the software engineers consider usability and functionality as the most important software quality attributes.