At the risk of confirmation bias, this seems to back fairly common beliefs in developer communities... namely that developers are individually optimistic and problems are largely the fault of mismanagement or other externalities.
> software developers are a slightly happy population
> the vast majority of the causes of unhappiness are of external type. Since external causes may be easier to influence
than internal causes, and since influencing them will impact several developers rather than only one at a time, this suggests that there are plenty of opportunities to improve conditions for developers in practice.
Also noteworthy: this study skewed highly male (94% v 5%). This may be a source of uncertainty.
Isn't the field heavily skewed towards males as well?
It wouldn't surprise me if 94% of software developers being male was perfectly true. Think about how many female software developers (not managers) you've seen per guy within IT.
At least for me, it's seldom that I meet female developers. At the workplaces I've been, it's approximately those numbers, perhaps even less.
Anecdotally it seems to vary massively between different workplaces. Smaller internet and games companies seem to have a much bigger male skew than larger, "boring enterprise" companies.
Larger companies have more time, energy, and money to worry about their hiring demographics. Everyone else just wants smart people in chairs in front of keyboards.
Where are those numbers from? Those numbers would imply 20-40% at computer science in universities as well. AFAIK that isn't the case in Europe or the US.
> problems are largely the fault of mismanagement or other externalities
Those externalities are often (not always) manageable through. And a lot of them are caused by developers themselves or by developers having wrong job.
> software developers are a slightly happy population
> the vast majority of the causes of unhappiness are of external type. Since external causes may be easier to influence than internal causes, and since influencing them will impact several developers rather than only one at a time, this suggests that there are plenty of opportunities to improve conditions for developers in practice.
Also noteworthy: this study skewed highly male (94% v 5%). This may be a source of uncertainty.