6 key roles in the software development team

The image of IT professionals in popular culture has changed dramatically in recent years. The absurd stereotypes are a thing of the past, and programmers have become the real elite of the 2010s.However, when we talk about professionals in the IT sphere, we should not only talk about programmers. IT projects require the participation of various professionals, and not only with a technical background. At app-promotion.net we work on projects from different industries such as healthcare, logistics, e-learning, etc. which require different approaches, but the core aspects of our mobile app development process remain the same.

Our team includes professionals with different roles who work to get the best solution that meets the client's goals and requirements.In this article, we will talk about 6 key professional roles required for a quality mobile or web app development project.

Business Analyst

The business analyst is involved in the project from the first stage, right after the deal, and sometimes even before it. The business analyst's main responsibility is to communicate with both the client and the development team.Customers usually think first and foremost about their goals. Programmers, on the other hand, think about functions and code, focusing on how to do what the customer wants and solve their problems.But there's a chasm between the client's goals and the application's functions. Consequently, the business analyst (BA for short) must determine exactly what the customer wants and needs.The BA collects the customer's requirements for the desired product, analyzes what it should look like and what features should be included in the development, as well as why and how it should be done.The business analyst also determines the product's target audience, creates user personas, wyrframes, and writes the terms of reference if it has not been fully provided by the client.

Project Manager

When the client's requirements have been defined and correctly interpreted, the project manager (PM for short) gets involved in the development process. His main task is to manage the project, as the name of the profession implies.The project manager distributes tasks between them, plans the progress of work, motivates the team, controls the process, and coordinates common activities. He is also responsible for time management, risk management, and contingency management.

The PM makes sure that the development process goes according to plan. In agile methodologies, this also means that changes that need to be made to the project are implemented correctly, so that the client can quickly and easily approve them, and the team does not do extra work.

UI/UX designer.

This is the person from whom most of the creativity in a project comes. The UI/UX designer's main responsibility is to create a pleasant interface and a great user experience.At App Promotion, our designers use InVision to create dynamic prototypes that reflect the behavior and appearance of the future product, allowing the prototype to be tested on a real device before the development process begins.The customer is comfortable seeing a model of the application, and programmers just need a prototype to write code. It is like a design-project of a room for professionals who will decorate it - you need to see what the result should be. Our designers at App Promotion also provide graphic elements for app stores, mockups, and logos.

Developers/programmers

This is the core of the team, people with a specific area of expertise. Programmers are like translators who translate human language and graphics language into digital language that computers and devices understand, allowing them to do what the customer wants.There are different levels on the software development team, including junior, middle and senior levels, which depend on experience and level of expertise.Programmers also have different areas of expertise, they write in different languages and work with different platforms. That is why there is such a "diversity" of developers involved in one project. For example, a standard mobile app development project requires at least Android, iOS and backend developers.

QA (Quality Assurance)

Specialists are needed for every development process and to ensure a high quality product. They test it, go through the entire application and identify bugs and errors and then report back to the development team who fixes them.Bugs need to be identified before the product reaches users in order to preserve the face of the product and ensure a positive user experience. Other responsibilities of QA specialists include general testing of the product and how it meets the stated requirements.

Marketing specialist

Work with the product in the pre- and post-development stages and are essential to the development of every product, only if it's not a system used exclusively internally. The team has developed buy play store installs a great product , but what's the point if no one knows about it?

Thus, these specialists conduct market research in the first phase of the project, identify the target audience and study their needs and preferences, as well as preparing and launching marketing campaigns after the release of the product, looking for distribution channels, doing social media marketing, writing texts and articles, product descriptions (content marketing), etc., to ensure the product promotion and its success.

Summarizing all of the above, it is worth noting that the software development team is not just programmers.App Promotion has a well-coordinated team of professionals with expertise in different areas responsible for all the stages of mobile and web applications development, ensuring the creation of a quality product.