Identifying Technical Competences of IT Professionals: The Case of Software Engineers

This article aims to identify technical competency levels relevant to Software Engineering in a spectrum of professional profiles which are found in Spain’s main Software Development companies. The research work presents a combination of three initiatives. The first step constitutes a review of the literature related to the characterization of the labor force in the Software Engineering domain. The subsequent step consists of a qualitative study of the practices of a set of organizations, and lastly, this was followed by a quantitative analysis based on investigative surveys administered to a number of representative professionals. The professional career is established from seven consecutive profiles. The pyramidal model for professional careers, identifying one single professional track going from Junior Programmer to IT Director, is still present in the organisations subject to this study. Technical excellence is reached in a determined professional profile, in this case “D”. From this point onwards, other competencies which are not uniquely characteristic of Software Engineering gain importance, and stimulate professional development towards higher levels.