Language Diversity in Microservices: a Case Study at Skatteverket

Microservices is a new and trendy architecture in software development and amongst its features isthe ability to open up for teams to more freely choose the tech stack and programming language thatbest fits their needs. This feature, termed language diversity for the purposes of this study, is describedin literature as a key to optimization and flexibility but is also ripe with concerns of complexity. Inthis study the author seeks to explore what language diversity could mean for the Swedish IT giantSkatteverket, the Swedish Tax Agency, from an organizational standpoint and to understand how itcan align with Skatteverket’s goals. To do so the author has performed a case study consisting of aquestionnaire sent out to tech workers in four different sections, and interviews with two keyindividuals in the organization. The results show that a significant number of respondents(p-value=0.003), consider that language diversity would improve Skatteverket’s attractiveness as anIT employer, the effects of which could be a competitive edge on the job market. It was also shownthat most (p-value<0.001) believed it would lead to at least some problems for the organization.Amongst the respondents, more experienced tech workers showed a tendency (p-value=0.06) tobelieve it would have less of a positive impact on Skatteverket’s image and were more likely tobelieve that the problems it would lead to would be greater. Overall, the study showed that languagediversity could offer other rewards than those proclaimed in literature, and that the modernizationfactor of it could play a big role for Skatteverket