Career Paths of Software Engineers : Survey Results and Policy Implications

This paper aims to analyze the characteristics of the career paths of software engineers and draws relevant policy implications. Although the career path for software engineers is known to be very short, the software industry suffers from a shortage of highly qualified software engineers, who usually have many years of experience in the industry. Based on the 2012 KIET Survey which consists of the company survey and the employee survey, this paper estimates the length of the career path for software engineers using two methods. The first method is to investigate the career formation process within the company and the second one is to ask the respondents a direct question about the actual retirement age. Since the software technology life cycle is very short, this may affect the career path of software engineers. This paper, however, would show that a unique ecosystem of the industry may affect it, as well. The government devotes many efforts to enlarge the supply of IT professionals, especially software engineers, since the 2000s. The upgrade of Korea’s software industry is scheduled to take place in the next three to five years, and this requires a supply of high-quality human resources, who also have a long experience of the industry. Therefore, the government announced ‘Strategies for symbiotic development of the software industry ecosystem’ in October 2011. This strategy tries to build a small-business oriented market system through restriction of large business to obtaining the government contracts in the IT service fields. In addition, in the package software industry and the embedded software industry, the government tries to enlarge the supply of highly qualified workers and to improve the R&D systems