What motivates software developers?

One of the main objectives in software engineering is that software projects are well succeeded, that is, delivering a high quality software product within due date. Considering that software development is an activity highly dependent on people, recent research has been showing that human factors in software engineering - such as motivation - impact projects results. This study aims thus at identifying motivating factors for practitioners that develop software, having a motivation theory as a foundation. Our research approach was the survey. We got 79 responses from practitioners from different organizations. Results show that motivation is related to existence, growth, relationships and interpersonal issues. We also identified a relation between motivation and turnover, motivation and the time working in a company, and motivation and the software process model used by practitioners.