What the Job Market Wants from Requirements Engineers?: An Empirical Analysis of Online Job Ads from the Netherlands

Maya Daneva; Chong Wang; Patrick Hoener; Patrick Hoener

doi:10.1109/ESEM.2017.60

What the Job Market Wants from Requirements Engineers? An Empirical Analysis of Online Job Ads from the Netherlands

Maya Daneva, Chong Wang, Patrick Hoener, Patrick Hoener

Semantics, Cybersecurity & Services

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

26 Citations (Scopus)

2 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Recently, the requirements engineering (RE) community recognized the increasing need for understanding how industry perceives the jobs of requirements engineers and their most important qualifications. This study contributes to the community's research effort on this topic. Based on an analysis of RE job ads in 2015 from the Netherlands' three most popular online IT-job portals, we identified those task and skill related qualifications that employers demand from RE job seekers. We found that the job titles used in industry for the specialists that the RE community calls 'requirements engineers', are 'Product Owner' and 'Analyst', be it Information Analyst, Application Analyst, or Data Analyst. Those professionals supposed to perform RE tasks also take responsibility for additional tasks including quality assurance, realization and deployment, and project management. The most in-demand skills are soft skills: Proficiency in Dutch and English, plus communication and analytical skills. RE is perceived as an occupation for experts, with 23% of all job ads asking explicitly for RE experience and 63% asking for experience similar to RE.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017
Place of Publication	Piscataway, NJ
Publisher	IEEE
Pages	448-453
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-5090-4039-1
ISBN (Print)	978-1-5090-4040-7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2017.60
Publication status	Published - 7 Dec 2017
Event	11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017 - Toronto, Canada Duration: 6 Dec 2017 → 9 Dec 2017 Conference number: 11

Publication series

Name	International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
Publisher	IEEE
Volume	2017
ISSN (Print)	1949-3770
ISSN (Electronic)	1949-3789

Conference

Conference	11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017
Abbreviated title	ESEM 2017
Country/Territory	Canada
City	Toronto
Period	6/12/17 → 9/12/17

Keywords

Exploratory study
Job ad
RE job market
Requirements engineer
Requirements engineering practice

Access to Document

10.1109/ESEM.2017.60

Cite this

Daneva, M., Wang, C., Hoener, P., & Hoener, P. (2017). What the Job Market Wants from Requirements Engineers? An Empirical Analysis of Online Job Ads from the Netherlands. In Proceedings - 11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017 (pp. 448-453). (International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement; Vol. 2017). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2017.60

Daneva, Maya ; Wang, Chong ; Hoener, Patrick et al. / What the Job Market Wants from Requirements Engineers? An Empirical Analysis of Online Job Ads from the Netherlands. Proceedings - 11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017. Piscataway, NJ : IEEE, 2017. pp. 448-453 (International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement).

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abstract = "Recently, the requirements engineering (RE) community recognized the increasing need for understanding how industry perceives the jobs of requirements engineers and their most important qualifications. This study contributes to the community's research effort on this topic. Based on an analysis of RE job ads in 2015 from the Netherlands' three most popular online IT-job portals, we identified those task and skill related qualifications that employers demand from RE job seekers. We found that the job titles used in industry for the specialists that the RE community calls 'requirements engineers', are 'Product Owner' and 'Analyst', be it Information Analyst, Application Analyst, or Data Analyst. Those professionals supposed to perform RE tasks also take responsibility for additional tasks including quality assurance, realization and deployment, and project management. The most in-demand skills are soft skills: Proficiency in Dutch and English, plus communication and analytical skills. RE is perceived as an occupation for experts, with 23% of all job ads asking explicitly for RE experience and 63% asking for experience similar to RE.",

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Daneva, M , Wang, C, Hoener, P & Hoener, P 2017, What the Job Market Wants from Requirements Engineers? An Empirical Analysis of Online Job Ads from the Netherlands. in Proceedings - 11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017. International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, vol. 2017, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, pp. 448-453, 11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 6/12/17. https://doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2017.60

What the Job Market Wants from Requirements Engineers? An Empirical Analysis of Online Job Ads from the Netherlands. / Daneva, Maya ; Wang, Chong; Hoener, Patrick et al.
Proceedings - 11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE, 2017. p. 448-453 (International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement; Vol. 2017).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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Daneva M , Wang C, Hoener P, Hoener P. What the Job Market Wants from Requirements Engineers? An Empirical Analysis of Online Job Ads from the Netherlands. In Proceedings - 11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2017. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE. 2017. p. 448-453. (International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement). doi: 10.1109/ESEM.2017.60