A Survey on Software Engineering Practices in Brazilian Startups

TL;DR

This survey analyzes software engineering practices in Brazilian startups, revealing that early-stage startups choose practices ad-hoc, and mature startups recognize the need for better practices to support scaling.

Contribution

It provides an empirical overview of current practices and tool selection in startups, highlighting the evolution of practices from initial to growth phases.

Findings

Startups select practices based on team knowledge and phase.

Support tools are chosen for integration and automation.

Mature startups recognize the need for improved practices.

Abstract

Today's significant technological advancement allows early-stage software startups to build and launch innovative products quickly on the market. However, many of them die in the early years of their path due to market conditions, ignorance of customer needs, lack of resources, or focus, such as the misuse of well-established practices. The study's motivation is to analyze software engineering practices in startups from a practitioner's perspective. Our objective was to identify practices and tools the startups employ in their daily routines. We carried out an expert survey study with 140 software developers involved in software startups from different domains. The results show that startups in the initial and validation phases select practices and tools on an ad-hoc basis and based on the development team's prior knowledge. When they move into the growth phase, they recognize that they could have adopted better practices beforehand to support product scaling with a more mature team. The results also indicated that support tools are selected based on their integration with other tools and their ability to automate operational activities.