Today, the number of software applications built on a daily basis is huge but not surprising. You type any single term on any of the search engines and you will find at least a few websites or apps in the result section named with that term. That should give you an idea about just how big the number is. Although, not even half of them can be called successful software products. So what does a successful software product mean?
A successful software product is usually a secure and bug-free software that has an effective performance and a user-friendly interface. These characteristics are not the ‘wants’ but the ‘needs’ in any good software. Not all software have all or even a few of the features mentioned and that is why you have to be cautious when a software product is being developed for your business as it will represent your brand. The efficiency of the software will be directly or indirectly associated with your business.
Although the success of a software product depends on multiple factors, one major factor is definitely the software development team that builds the software.
To put it in simple terms, your software will be as good as the team that builds it.
People from a non-technical background tend to believe that a software development team consists of only programmers. While programmers are a strong part of the development team, the team consists of numerous other major roles and responsibilities that need to be handled. To understand better, let us find out in detail about the components of a software development team below.
Roles and responsibilities
Project Manager
The project manager holds the responsibility of the entire development team, the ownership of the product, and the first person who is answerable to the client. A project manager has several duties at hand in order to manage the project well.
Some of these responsibilities include planning the product budget, client and the team schedules, processes, and workflows, timely communication with the clients, constant coordination with the team, distribution of tasks to respective team members, continual check on the quality and consistently making sure that the work is going according to the plan.
Engineering Manager
The engineering manager leads the team of developers and closely monitors the development and the performance of the developers. The engineering manager is the mediator between developers and the project manager and a representative of the team of developers before the client and has to answer all the questions, queries, and doubts on the development team’s behalf.
Engineering managers usually possess a combination of strong technical, communication, and leadership skills and stay constantly updated about every new technological development in the project.
UI/UX Designer
The work of a UI/UX designer is the most innovative among all the roles in a software development team. They work on the appearance of the product – the right colors, style, flow, graphics, and animations that will best suit this particular product and have to make sure the user interface of the product appears appealing and convenient and at the same time, meets all the client requirements.
The designers also need to collaborate with developers throughout the end-to-end development process and work on enhancements that occur as the project progresses.
Testing and QA Engineer
The testing and QA engineers play a major role at every phase of the end-to-end development life cycle. They thoroughly scrutinize, test, and report the bugs and flaws in the product to the engineering manager at every stage. This helps keep the product optimized, stabilize the quality of the product throughout and prevents development mistakes which can potentially lead to bigger flaws in the product later on.
They also ensure the requirements, the design and the development are all in sync with each other. This leads to an optimal end product and also saves much of the time, money, and resources.
Learn more about the work of a testing and QA team here.
Software Developer
The developers turn the ideas, requirements, and designs into a real product. The performance of the team and the quality of the product, both highly dependent on the team of developers. The developers are also responsible for deadline estimations based on the technical requirements and timely communication of the development progress of various features.
There are 5 types of software development roles:
Software Architect
A software architect defines principles and designs a structured plan that is thoroughly followed by the entire team of developers to create a solution that meets all the business, technical and operational requirements.
Front-end Developer
Front end developers implement the visual aspect that users look at and interact within an application. They constantly work on enhancing the user experience and optimizing the visual functionalities.
Back-end Developer
Back end developers work on the server-side of the application and integrate the data from the database to the visual appearance. The entire logic and functionality of the application are implemented from scratch and handled by the backend developers.
Database Engineer
A database engineer thinks in terms of data and mainly works on handling the entire database component. The primary role of a database engineer is to build out the database and the data management systems and maintain the database servers.
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack developers are all-rounders and do not stick to one single section of development. They work on every aspect of development – view, logic as well as data.
DevOps Engineer
Development does not end with the delivery of the product. In fact, a substantial amount of product development happens in the post-delivery phase. DevOps engineers work on maintaining consistent quality throughout the product, bringing enhancements in the functionalities, and optimizing the performance of the product based on the feedback from the client and the users to come up with an upgraded output every time.
A team that has a well-defined structure – where all team members have their roles clearly defined based on their abilities and skill set – tends to yield an optimal output. The better the processes and the protocols defined, the better the functioning of the team together as well individually.
Our goal at Cybertrom is to help your business flourish by building a product that is led by well-defined processes that are tailored to meet your unique product requirements and a strongly structured team that constantly strives to build and deliver the optimized and reliable product that is promised.
