Differences between Neurodivergent and Neurotypical Software Engineers: Analyzing the 2022 Stack Overflow Survey

TL;DR

This study analyzes 2022 Stack Overflow survey data to compare challenges faced by neurodivergent and neurotypical software engineers, revealing that neurodivergent engineers encounter more difficulties and different interaction patterns.

Contribution

It provides the first quantitative comparison of neurodivergent and neurotypical software engineers using large-scale survey data, establishing a baseline for future research.

Findings

Neurodivergent engineers face more difficulties than neurotypical engineers.

Engineers with ADHD report more interruptions and less outside-team interaction.

The study offers conservative estimates due to survey limitations.

Abstract

Neurodiversity describes variation in brain function among people, including common conditions such as Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and dyslexia. While Software Engineering (SE) literature has started to explore the experiences of neurodivergent software engineers, there is a lack of research that compares their challenges to those of neurotypical software engineers. To address this gap, we analyze existing data from the 2022 Stack Overflow Developer survey that collected data on neurodiversity. We quantitatively compare the answers of professional engineers with ASD (n=374), ADHD (n=1305), and dyslexia (n=363) with neurotypical engineers. Our findings indicate that neurodivergent engineers face more difficulties than neurotypical engineers. Specifically, engineers with ADHD report that they face more interruptions caused by waiting for answers, and that they less frequently interact with individuals outside their team. This study provides a baseline for future research comparing neurodivergent engineers with neurotypical ones. Several factors in the Stack Overflow survey and in our analysis are likely to lead to conservative estimates of the actual effects between neurodivergent and neurotypical engineers, e.g., the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and our focus on employed professionals.