Whither (away) Software Engineers in SBSE?

Abstract

This challenges and open problems paper discusses the role of software engineers when combining modeling with Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE). With SBSE techniques increasingly providing insights into difficult software modeling problems, the role of the software engineer might be thought of as diminishing. However, given the crucial role of the model understanding in SBSE, we argue that the role of the software engineer will become more important through interactive SBSE, although exploiting this interaction remains a challenge for the field.