What Makes a Good Developer? An Empirical Study of Developers' Technical and Social Competencies

Abstract

Technical and social competencies are highly desirable for a protean developer. Managers make hiring decisions based on developer's contributions to online peer production sites like GitHub and Stack Overflow. These sites provide ample history regarding developers' technical and social skills. Although these histories are utilized by hiring tools to help managers make their hiring decisions, little is known empirically how developers' social skills affect their technical skills and vice versa. Without such knowledge, tools, research, and training might be flawed. We present an in-depth empirical study investigating the correlation between the technical and social skills of developers. Our quantitative analysis of factors influencing the social skills of developers compared with factors affecting their technical skills indicates that better collaboration competency skills are associated with enhanced coding abilities as well as the quality of code.