Eirini Kalliamvakou

dblp:27/1557 · DBLP profile ↗
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12ranked-venue papers
6as first author
3since 2021 · last 2025
0000-0002-7602-4581ORCID · corroborated

Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several

Software engineering, systems software and programming languages · 12 · 6 first-author · 3 since 2021Databases, data management, data science and information retrieval · 3 · 1 first-author
YearPublicationVenuePosition
2025 What Guides Our Choices? Modeling Developers' Trust and Behavioral Intentions Towards Genai
abstract
Generative AI (genAI) tools, such as ChatGPT or Copilot, are advertised to improve developer productivity and are being integrated into software development. However, misaligned trust, skepticism, and usability concerns can impede the adoption of such tools. Research also indicates that AI can be exclusionary, failing to support diverse users adequately. One such aspect of diversity is cognitive diversity-variations in users' cognitive styles-that leads to divergence in perspectives and interaction styles. When an individual's cognitive style is unsupported, it creates barriers to technology adoption. Therefore, to understand how to effectively integrate genAI tools into software development, it is first important to model what factors affect developers' trust and intentions to adopt genAI tools in practice? We developed a theoretically grounded statistical model to (1) identify factors that influence developers' trust in genAI tools and (2) examine the relationship between developers' trust, cognitive styles, and their intentions to use these tools in their work. We surveyed software developers ($\mathrm{N}=238$) at two major global tech organizations: GitHub Inc. and Microsoft; and employed Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to evaluate our model. Our findings reveal that genAI's system/output quality, functional value, and goal maintenance significantly influence developers' trust in these tools. Furthermore, developers' trust and cognitive styles influence their intentions to use these tools in their work. We offer practical suggestions for designing genAI tools for effective use and inclusive user experience.
Rudrajit Choudhuri, Bianca Trinkenreich, Rahul Pandita, Eirini Kalliamvakou, Igor Steinmacher, Marco Aurélio Gerosa, Christopher Sanchez, Anita Sarma
ICSE4
2021 Moving from Closed to Open Source: Observations from Six Transitioned Projects to GitHub
abstract
Open source software systems have gained a lot of attention in the past few years. With the emergence of open source platforms like GitHub, developers can contribute, store, and manage their projects with ease. Large organizations like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are open sourcing their in-house technologies in an effort to more broadly involve the community in the development of software systems. Although closed source and open source systems have been studied extensively, there has been little research on the transition from closed source to open source systems. Through this study we aim to: a) provide guidance and insights for other teams planning to open source their projects and b) to help them avoid pitfalls during the transition process. We studied six different Microsoft systems, which were recently open-sourced i.e., CoreFX, CoreCLR, Roslyn, Entity Framework, MVC, and Orleans. This paper presents the transition from the viewpoints of both Microsoft and the open source community based on interviews with eleven Microsoft developer, five Microsoft senior managers involved in the decision to open source, and eleven open-source developers. From Microsoft's perspective we discuss the reasons for the transition, experiences of developers involved, and the transition's outcomes and challenges. Our results show that building a vibrant community, prompt answers, developing an open source culture, security regulations and business opportunities are the factors which persuade companies to open source their products. We also discuss the transition outcomes on processes such as code reviews, version control systems, continuous integration as well as developers' perception of these changes. From the open source community's perspective, we illustrate the response to the open-sourcing initiative through contributions and interactions with the internal developers and provide guidelines for other projects planning to go open source.
Pavneet Singh Kochhar, Eirini Kalliamvakou, Nachiappan Nagappan, Thomas Zimmermann 0001, Christian Bird
IEEE Trans. Software Eng.2
2021 Towards a Theory of Software Developer Job Satisfaction and Perceived Productivity
abstract
Developer satisfaction and work productivity are important considerations for software companies. Enhanced developer satisfaction may improve the attraction, retention and health of employees, while higher productivity should reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction through faster software improvements. Many researchers and companies assume that perceived productivity and job satisfaction are related and may be used as proxies for one another, but these claims are a current topic of debate. There are also many social and technical factors that may impact satisfaction and productivity, but which factors have the most impact is not clear, especially for specific development contexts. Through our research, we developed a theory articulating a bi-directional relationship between software developer job satisfaction and perceived productivity, and identified what additional social and technical factors, challenges and work context variables influence this relationship. The constructs and relationships in our theory were derived in part from related literature in software engineering and knowledge work, and we validated and extended these concepts through a rigorously designed survey instrument. We instantiate our theory with a large software company, which suggests a number of propositions about the relative impact of various factors and challenges on developer satisfaction and perceived productivity. Our survey instrument and analysis approach can be applied to other development settings, while our findings lead to concrete recommendations for practitioners and researchers.
Margaret-Anne D. Storey, Thomas Zimmermann 0001, Christian Bird, Jacek Czerwonka, Brendan Murphy, Eirini Kalliamvakou
IEEE Trans. Software Eng.6
2020 The who, what, how of software engineering research: a socio-technical framework
Margaret-Anne D. Storey, Neil A. Ernst, Courtney Williams, Eirini Kalliamvakou
Empir. Softw. Eng.4
2019 What Makes a Great Manager of Software Engineers?
abstract
Having great managers is as critical to success as having a good team or organization. In general, a great manager is seen as fuelling the team they manage, enabling it to use its full potential. Though software engineering research studies factors that may affect the performance and productivity of software engineers and teams (like tools and skills), it has overlooked the software engineering manager. The software industry's growth and change in the last decades is creating a need for a domain-specific view of management. On the one hand, experts are questioning how the abundant work in management applies to software engineering. On the other hand, practitioners are looking to researchers for evidence-based guidance on how to manage software teams. We conducted a mixed methods empirical study of software engineering management at Microsoft to investigate what manager attributes developers and engineering managers perceive important and why. We present a conceptual framework of manager attributes, and find that technical skills are not the sign of greatness for an engineering manager. Through statistical analysis we identify how engineers and managers relate in their views, and how software engineering differs from other knowledge work groups in its perceptions about what makes great managers. We present strategies for putting the attributes to use, discuss implications for research and practice, and offer avenues for further work.
Eirini Kalliamvakou, Christian Bird, Thomas Zimmermann 0001, Andrew Begel, Robert DeLine, Daniel M. Germán
IEEE Trans. Software Eng.1
2018 What makes a great manager of software engineers?
abstract
Having great managers is as critical to success as having a good team or organization. A great manager is seen as fuelling the team they manage, enabling it to use its full potential. Though software engineering research studies factors that may affect the performance and productivity of software engineers and teams (like tools and skill), it has overlooked the software engineering manager. On the one hand, experts are questioning how the abundant work in management applies to software engineering. On the other hand, practitioners are looking to researchers for evidence-based guidance on how to manage software teams. We conducted a mixed methods empirical study to investigate what manager attributes developers and engineering managers perceive important and why. We present a conceptual framework of manager attributes, and find that technical skills are not the sign of greatness for an engineering manager. Through statistical analysis we identify how engineers and managers relate in their views, and how software engineering differs from other knowledge work groups.
Eirini Kalliamvakou, Christian Bird, Thomas Zimmermann 0001, Andrew Begel, Robert DeLine, Daniel M. Germán
ICSE1
2016 An in-depth study of the promises and perils of mining GitHub
Eirini Kalliamvakou, Georgios Gousios, Kelly Blincoe, Leif Singer, Daniel M. Germán, Daniela E. Damian
Empir. Softw. Eng.1
2015 Open Source-Style Collaborative Development Practices in Commercial Projects Using GitHub
abstract
Researchers are currently drawn to study projects hosted on GitHub due to its popularity, ease of obtaining data, and its distinctive built-in social features. GitHub has been found to create a transparent development environment, which together with a pull request-based workflow, provides a lightweight mechanism for committing, reviewing and managing code changes. These features impact how GitHub is used and the benefits it provides to teams' development and collaboration. While most of the evidence we have is from GitHub's use in open source software (OSS) projects, GitHub is also used in an increasing number of commercial projects. It is unknown how GitHub supports these projects given that GitHub's workflow model does not intuitively fit the commercial development way of working. In this paper, we report findings from an online survey and interviews with GitHub users on how GitHub is used for collaboration in commercial projects. We found that many commercial projects adopted practices that are more typical of OSS projects including reduced communication, more independent work, and self-organization. We discuss how GitHub's transparency and popular workflow can promote open collaboration, allowing organizations to increase code reuse and promote knowledge sharing across their teams.
Eirini Kalliamvakou, Daniela E. Damian, Kelly Blincoe, Leif Singer, Daniel M. Germán
ICSE (1)1
2015 A Field Study of Modellers at Work
abstract
Knowing the impact in real settings of a software development approach is beneficial to both the industry and the research community. In this paper, we report on a field study we conducted at General Motors with the intent of understanding whether the organization was achieving some of the intended benefits of introducing a model-driven approach to software engineering. This study involved both observations and interviews. We found that several factors are still limiting the productivity increase claimed by MDE.
Eirini Kalliamvakou, Marc Palyart, Gail C. Murphy, Daniela E. Damian
MiSE@ICSE1
2014 The promises and perils of mining GitHub
abstract
With over 10 million git repositories, GitHub is becoming one of the most important source of software artifacts on the Internet. Researchers are starting to mine the information stored in GitHub's event logs, trying to understand how its users employ the site to collaborate on software. However, so far there have been no studies describing the quality and properties of the data available from GitHub. We document the results of an empirical study aimed at understanding the characteristics of the repositories in GitHub and how users take advantage of GitHub's main features---namely commits, pull requests, and issues. Our results indicate that, while GitHub is a rich source of data on software development, mining GitHub for research purposes should take various potential perils into consideration. We show, for example, that the majority of the projects are personal and inactive; that GitHub is also being used for free storage and as a Web hosting service; and that almost 40% of all pull requests do not appear as merged, even though they were. We provide a set of recommendations for software engineering researchers on how to approach the data in GitHub.
Eirini Kalliamvakou, Georgios Gousios, Kelly Blincoe, Leif Singer, Daniel M. Germán, Daniela E. Damian
MSR1
2014 Understanding "watchers" on GitHub
abstract
Users on GitHub can watch repositories to receive notifications about project activity. This introduces a new type of passive project membership. In this paper, we investigate the behavior of watchers and their contribution to the projects they watch. We find that a subset of project watchers begin contributing to the project and those contributors account for a significant percentage of contributors on the project. As contributors, watchers are more confident and contribute over a longer period of time in a more varied way than other contributors. This is likely attributable to the knowledge gained through project notifications.
Jyoti Sheoran, Kelly Blincoe, Eirini Kalliamvakou, Daniela E. Damian, Jordan Ell
MSR3
2008 Measuring developer contribution from software repository data
abstract
Apart from source code, software infrastructures supporting agile and distributed software projects contain traces of developer activity that does not directly affect the product itself but is important for the development process. We propose a model that, by combining traditional contribution metrics with data mined from software repositories, can deliver accurate developer contribution measurements. The model creates clusters of similar projects to extract weights that are then applied to the actions a developer performed on project assets to extract a combined measurement of the developer's contribution. We are currently implementing the model in the context of a software quality monitoring system while we are also validating its components by means of questionnaires.
Georgios Gousios, Eirini Kalliamvakou, Diomidis Spinellis
MSR2