Information Needs for Validating Evolving Software Systems: An Exploratory Study at Google

Software evolves continuously. Its behavior must be validated by engineers who perform daily development and maintenance tasks. However, despite its high importance, information needs for validating evolving software has not been systematically studied in an industrial setting. Such lack of empirical knowledge hinders attempts to understand this fundamental practice and improve the corresponding tool support. This paper presents a study on 194 Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) at Google to explore their information needs. The results suggest several directions where software engineering researchers may consider putting effort to develop new techniques and tool support that matter to practitioners.