Productivity Researcher

Research Focus

I am a Ph.D. student at the Human Aspects of Software Engineering Lab (HASEL) at the University of Zurich, supervised by Prof. Thomas Fritz. My research focuses on Software Developer Experience & Productivity – understanding how developers work and building tools to help them work better.

My research is deeply informed by my practical experience as a software engineer with 15+ years of building systems, giving me unique insights into real-world developer challenges.

Research Areas

My work sits at the intersection of:

• Developer Productivity: Understanding what makes developers productive and how to measure it
• AI-Driven Tools: Building intelligent tools using generative AI to boost developer workflows
• Knowledge Management: Helping developers find, organize, and reuse information effectively
• Personal Information Management: Supporting developers in managing their digital work artifacts
• Developer Experience: Improving the overall experience of software development

Ph.D. Thesis

My dissertation focuses on building tools for enhancing software developer experience and productivity. I use a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, including surveys, interviews, field studies, and controlled experiments to understand developer needs and validate tool effectiveness.

Supervised Projects

I have supervised 10+ students through their master’s and bachelor’s theses and projects, guiding them end-to-end through the research process:

• “CA$H: Collaborative Agent Software Hierarchy - An Agent-Based Approach for Concept Location and Change Propagation in Software Evolution” (Master Project, 2025)
• “Generating FAQs from Chat Conversations” (Master Project, 2024)
• “Educational AI Companion for ACCESS” (Master Project, 2024)
• “Task-Management with Microtasking” (Bachelor Thesis, 2023)
• “ScreenCurator – Curation of digital knowledge with screenshots” (Bachelor Thesis, 2023)
• “Detecting Related Stack Overflow Posts for Discord Conversations” (Master Thesis, 2022)
• “I am Stuck. Characteristics of Stuck Phases During Software Development” (Bachelor Thesis, 2022)
• “P.E.T. calendar – A time-management software that considers energy levels” (Bachelor Thesis, 2022)
• “AmbientTeams: Staying socially connected in remote knowledge work teams” (Master Thesis, 2021)
• “Self-experimentation and Reflection at Work to Form Productive Habits” (Master Project, 2021)

Selected Publications

2026

A. Lill, V. Hollenstein, R. Rutishauser, A. N. Meyer, and T. Fritz. “TaCoS: Generated Context Summaries for Task Resumption”. Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE ‘26), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2026.

2025

A. Ruvimova, A. Lill, L. Howe, E. Huang, G. Murphy, and T. Fritz. “Remote Workplace Interactions and Extraversion: A Field Study on Wellbeing and Productivity Among Knowledge Workers”. Proceedings of the Conference for Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’25), Bergen, Norway, 2025.

2024

A. Lill, A. N. Meyer, and T. Fritz. “On the Helpfulness of Answering Developer Questions on Discord with Similar Conversations and Posts from the Past”. Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’24), Lisbon, Portugal, 2024.

2023

T. Fritz, A. Lill, A. N. Meyer, G. C. Murphy, and L. Howe. “Cultivating a Team Mindset about Productivity with a Nudge: A Field Study in Hybrid Development Teams”. Proceedings of the Conference for Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’23), Minneapolis, MN, USA, 2023.

2022

A. Ruvimova, A. Lill, G. Murphy, E. Huang, J. Gugler, L. Howe, T. Fritz. “An Exploratory Study of Productivity in Software Teams”. Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’22), Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2022.

Teaching

I have taught software engineering fundamentals and developer productivity topics at the University of Zurich, helping students understand both the technical and human aspects of software development.

Courses Taught

• Seminar: Software Evolution and Developer Productivity (SEDP) - HS20, HS21, HS23, HS24
• Fundamentals of Software Systems (FSS) - HS21 (Exercise), HS23 (Lead Assistant)
• Software Engineering Lab / Software Praktikum (SoPra) - FS21, FS22, FS23 (Support)
• Software Engineering - FS23 (Guest Lecture on Requirements Specification)

Events & Workshops

2025

• Co-organized a hackathon on digital health, bringing together students and health experts to tackle real-world challenges in healthcare technology

Research Methods

My research employs a diverse methodological toolkit:

• Quantitative Research: Surveys, statistical analysis, data mining
• Qualitative Research: Interviews, thematic analysis
• Field Studies: Real-world deployments and evaluations
• Controlled Experiments: Lab studies to test specific hypotheses
• Tool Building: Creating research prototypes and production-ready tools

Academic Engagement

Beyond my core research, I’ve been actively involved in the academic community:

• Interdisciplinary Research Assistant (2022-2025): Member of the Digital Society Initiative Excellence Program at UZH, working across faculties on interdisciplinary challenges including AI usage surveys and health innovation
• Junior Researcher Representative (2022-2024): Represented junior researchers at the faculty assembly through the Association of Junior Researchers (VAUZ)

From Research to Practice

My research insights now directly inform my work as an AI Engineer at appliedAI, where I build AI-powered tools for enterprise environments. The combination of academic rigor and practical engineering experience allows me to create solutions that are both theoretically sound and practically useful.