MIOIR Seminar Series - The Building Blocks of Software Work
| Dates: | 8 December 2025 |
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| Times: | 15:30 - 16:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Alliance Manchester Business School |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Alumni, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Frank Neffke |
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Frank Neffke will explore the building blocks of software work and what they reveal about learning, careers and the spread of programming languages. (Co-authors: Xiangnan Feng, Johannes Wachs, Simone Daniotti)
Abstract:
Recent waves of technological transformation are reshaping work in uncertain and hard-to-predict ways. However, jobs at the forefront of the digitizing economy offer an early glimpse of these changes and leave rich activity traces. We exploit such traces in tens of millions of Question and Answer posts on Stack Overflow to analyze work in the global software industry. We use these posts to create a fine-grained taxonomy of software tasks. These elementary building blocks of programming work predict salaries and job requirements in real-world job ads and trace how programmers learn and diversify their tasks. Moreover, mapping task relatedness reveals how Python spreads across the programming task space, allowing it to rise as a general-purpose language that facilitates users in transitioning to higher value tasks. As coding and digital work spread across occupations, we expect that these insights will inform us about the future of work far beyond software.
Speaker bio:
Frank Neffke has been the team leader of the Transforming Economies research group at the Complexity Science Hub since July 2021. Before joining CSH, Frank was the research director of the Growth Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School, USA. Frank’s research focuses on economic transformation and growth. He has written on a variety of topics, such as structural transformation and new growth paths in regional economies, economic complexity, division of labor and teams, the consequences of job displacement and the future of work.
Seminar Details:
The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research runs a series of regular seminars given by visiting speakers to Manchester. These seminars are open to anybody who is interested in science, technology and innovation policy and management.
Refreshments will be available for networking from 3:15 pm, before the seminar.
We encourage AMBS and UoM staff and students to join us in person. An online option will be available via Microsoft Teams Online (see below). Please feel free to share this invitation with your networks.
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Microsoft Teams:
Meeting ID: 363 115 330 616 1
Passcode: 3jL3vc2Q
Speaker
Frank Neffke
Role: Team leader of the Transforming Economies research group
Organisation: Complexity Science Hub
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
9.041 AMBS (Hybrid)
Aliiance Manchester Business School
Booth Street West
Manchester
