This is not only the first step to building a team but also one of the first steps to planning and managing a software development project. Frontend and backend developers https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ play a key role in most engineering teams. Backend developers handle the “behind the scenes” programming — the coding and architecture that keeps the software running.

roles in software development team

There are a variety of factors that will ultimately influence the size and structure of your development team. Software development team roles and responsibilities can be daunting at first, especially if you outsource your project to a remote development team for a first time. Finally, the developed software is ready to be used by real users. It’s crucial to have a team of software engineers who can respond to service tickets, suggestions, and technical questions promptly. The maintenance stage deals with fixing problems that weren’t noticed before and adapting the software to changes by upgrading it regularly.

Key roles in a software development team

QA Engineers make sure that your application is bug-free, has adequate support across all devices/browsers, and meets all the requirements. A skilled test automation engineer would help you choose which parts of an application are good candidates for automation and what’s better to be tested software development team roles manually. They would also design a test automation ecosystem that is easy to maintain and update. Finally, they’ll make sure that your test automation initiative generates as much value as possible at a reasonable cost. A test automation engineer is there to help you test faster and better.

roles in software development team

It is important that the people responsible for coordinating the work are the same from start to finish.

Tech Reviews

Here, you have to identify the problem that your software must solve. This stage sets the foundation for the whole project’s direction. It also makes sure that the client’s business goals will align with the final product.

roles in software development team

Must make sure that end users will have the best possible experience while using an application. What’s more, in a case of larger, more complex systems, such developer’s capabilities of building data queries (i.e. SQL) and its optimisation are of enormous value. It’s a programmer focused mainly on developing business logic and data layers. And because elements are crucial to system functioning; its correctness depends on the quality of back-end developer’s work. Because of this, a full stack developer may appear less-advanced than a front-end or back-end developer.

Project manager (PM)

For example, a front-end dev can be familiar with back-end Java or have some knowledge in UI design. The Software Testers ensure that the software solution meets the business requirements and that it is free of bugs, errors and defects. The Software Developers are also responsible for building the deliverables and communicating the status of the software project to the Technical Lead or Project Manager.

roles in software development team

They make decisions and carry out meetings of the project’s methodology. Some tools which are used by Business Analysts are Jira and Confluence, Pencil, Google Doc, Trello, Balsamiq, etc. If you need to prove your concept and build an MVP, a team of four to six specialists may be enough. However, if you’re going to completely redesign an existing app, launch a fully functioning product, or deal with another complex software solution, the number of team members you’ll need will increase. Using mainly HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and JavaScript frameworks, they create app pages according to your prototype and your business requirements.

Who is who among the members of a software development team?

Some teams will have other specialist roles, or won’t have one of these main roles, depending on the project you are working on. The project manager is the person responsible for determining who will handle which tasks and when things will get done. They also facilitate communication between team members and document the team’s progress for the product owner and other stakeholders. They can also provide resources to help each team member meet their individual goals. Your software development team should be constructed with the Agile principles in mind. Here are the roles and responsibilities to fill during the hiring process for your software development team.

  • The developers are the ones in charge of writing the code and developing the software products.
  • Depending on the type of Agile framework you are using, the project manager may also be referred to as a scrum master or a team lead.
  • Because efficiency is an important principle of the Agile framework, team members have a lot of control over their own workflow.
  • Sometimes it comes down to software having a poor user experience, but more often it’s due to a lack of structure within software development teams.
  • You’ll need extra specialists who know how to work with different popular operating systems (Mac OS X, Windows, Unix, and Unix-like systems like Linux, Ubuntu, and FreeBSD).

A backend developer takes care of everything that goes “under the hood of an application”. Backend engineers are the key problem solvers in the development process. A product development project will require more specialists – but that depends on your methodology. If you’re using an agile approach, the team will usually include up to nine specialists. If your project is large-scale, then several agile things might work together. For a waterfall project, there’s no size limit, and the number of people in your team will depend on the type and complexity of your application.

Learn more about project management with Google

At a daily operations level, too, one can miss opportunities due to poorly thought-out staffing decisions. A project manager may, for instance, overlook the need for a DevOps engineer, thus, preventing themselves from tapping into numerous benefits. For example, in one of our projects, introducing DevOps helped our customer reduce release cycles from ten to two weeks, implement 30+ new features quickly, and achieve a code coverage of 80%.

Full Stack developers (Node.js, React), one C++ developer, QA automation engineers, a Product Manager, a DevOps, and even the Director of Engineering. Our recruiters started with the Engineering Manager position and filled it within a month! This specialist has been working for the company for more than one year already . Outline its members’ responsibilities that ensure proper work management and lead to overall performance.

For a personalized experience, tell us more

Your personal data collected in this form will be used only to contact you and talk about your project. A step-by-step guide on how to drive a scrum project, prioritize and organize your backlog into sprints, run the scrum ceremonies and more, all in Jira. This gets even harder the more complex the problem a team is trying to solve. As the old saying goes ‘you don’t know what you don’t know, until you know you don’t know it’. Teams might not know the skills or amount of work needed up front, and need the flexibility to change course once they know more.