Fostering Psychological Safety for Interpersonal Learning in Neurodiverse Software Teams

In software engineering, psychological safety is the shared belief that team members feel safe to take interpersonal risks in the workplace [1]. Psychological safety plays an essential role in communication, especially in tightly coupled team activities like mob programming (i.e., mobbing), in which three or more team members develop software together [6]. Mobbing requires members to play different roles while suggesting and digesting new ideas, which makes them particularly vulnerable to interpersonal risk. Autistic software engineers can struggle with mob programming, as they experience high levels of anxiety and stress when communicating with others due to their different cognitive and communication styles [3]. A collaborative space that allows autistic team members to flexibly communicate in neurodiverse teams can increase the psychological safety and accessibility of collaborative software development.