How COVID-19 Pandemic affects Software Developers’ Wellbeing, and the Necessity to strengthen Soft Skills

The coronavirus COVID-19 swept the world in early 2020, working from home was a necessity. In the software industry, thousands of software developers began working from home, many did so on short notice, under difficult and stressful conditions. The emotions of developers can be affected by this situation. On the other hand, some well-known soft skills have been emphasized as required for working remotely. Software engineering research lacks theory and methodologies for addressing human aspects in software development. In this paper we present an exploratory study with a survey applied to practitioners in the west border area of Mexico-USA. It is focused on the developers’ wellbeing during pandemic, expressed as emotions, and the perceptions of the level in which soft skills are practiced/required in the working from home mode. The results show that high percent expressed to experience positive emotions, however, a portion of respondents expressed to feel negative emotions. In general terms, 91.0% of respondents expressed to be satisfied working from home, but some conditions should be improved. In the case of soft skills, some of them are revealed as practiced in high level in working from home, but still there is not consensus.