What Mobile App Development Team Do You Need for Your Project?

The success of a project directly depends on the app development team working on it.

As a company specializing in mobile app development, we often get questions about the mobile development team structure, the experts who should be on the team, and how to make the right choice. After all, choosing a team incapable of delivering the solutions may result in a high financial loss.

The structure of a mobile app development team depends on several factors – technical requirements, number of targeted platforms, size of the app in the works, development timelines, etc. Still, there are a few professionals on every app development team:

• Project manager
• Product manager
• Business analyst
• UX/UI designer
• iOS developer
• Android developers
• Backend developer
• QA engineer

Project manager

A project manager is assigned to every client in an app development company. The main tasks of a project manager are to act as an intermediate between you and a mobile app development team, track the performance of the development process, adherence to deadlines and quality standards. A project manager takes responsibility for a project from start to finish.

Product manager

A product manager role is often confused with a project manager. While they are both managers, their responsibilities are quite different.

A product manager is the owner of the product. This person is a strategist responsible for identifying new features and finding ways to improve the product to meet end users’ demands and needs better. The main task of a product manager is finding new ways to improve the product’s value and enhance user experience.

Business Analyst

A business analyst helps businesses improve processes, products, services, and software through data analysis. This person has hard and soft skills, which help them identify, analyze and report data trends.

A business analyst works closely with the development team, designers, and finance teams based on the tasks at hand.

UX/UI Designer

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are two related yet district concepts. UX refers to how users interact with a product. UI refers to the visual aspect of an app interface. As a part of a mobile app development team, the main goal of a UX/UI designer is to create an intuitive, appealing, and user-friendly interface for your mobile application.

The designer makes all the decisions based on the data collected during user persona research. If users find your app difficult or confusing, you’ll face the problem of high app abandonment and low user retention.

In some application development teams, one person performs the tasks of UX and UI designers, whereas, in others, the roles are distributed between two specialists.

iOS developer

Depending on your target audience and budget, you can build an iOS app, an Android app or create apps for both platforms. Either way, you’ll need to separate your iOS development team from your Android development team.

iOS app developers are responsible for the technical part of the mobile creation process. They turn the design into a working app for devices by Apple and iOS and iPadOS operating systems.

Android app developer

Just like iOS developers, Android app developers are responsible for creating high-performing, responsive and secure mobile applications. While their responsibilities are quite similar, they need to have different competencies and knowledge of development tools.

Backend developer

A backend developer is responsible for all the magic happening under the roof of a mobile application. The developer keeps the servers running and manages cloud storage and operational logic.

QA engineer

A Quality Assurance (QA) engineer is responsible for delivering a high-quality application. QAs monitor every stage of mobile app development to ensure the design and code adhere to the project requirements. A QA engineer is an integral part of a mobile app development team. The main task of a QA is to spot any bugs before release of the app or new features.

A QA engineer can perform different types of testing, such as quality assurance, performance testing, integration testing, regression testing, etc.

App Development Team Size

Let’s start with answering the most interesting questions – can one person create an app?

One person can create a simple application. However, that person should be a tech guru to handle all the processes involved in app creation – from design to development and quality assurance.

In most cases, you need a team to create a mobile application.

But the question is, how do you choose the right development team size?

The mobile app development team you need depends on a few factors:

• Mobile platforms you’re targeting
• App and features complexity
• App development timelines
• Financial resources

Also, the team size will depend on the size of the app you’re going to build:

• Simple apps with a basic set of features and interface design
• Medium app with more complex functionality and design
• Complex app provides users with interactive design, several complex features, integration with third-party solutions, such as payment systems.

Usually, the application development team consists of the following professionals:

• 1 project/product manager
• 1 UX/UI designer
• 1 iOS developer
• 1 Android developer
• 1 Backend developer
• 1 QA engineer

If you compose such a team, the development process will take:

• 2-6 months for the simplest app
• 6-9 months for a medium app
• 9+ months for a complex app

If you have enough budget and tight timelines, you can always add more team members to speed up the development process and launch the app to the market faster.

App Development Team: Cooperation Models

When you decide to build an app, you need to find an application development team to implement your project. There are a few cooperation models that offer different levels of the team’s involvement in app development, how much time they dedicate to your project, and who manages them.

Let’s take a look at the key cooperation models.

• In-house application development team
• Freelancers
• Dedicated app development team
• Outstaffing
• Outsourcing

Team: Wrapping Up

In this article, we’ve shared some insight into building an application development team.

Here are a few key takeaways from the article:

• Usually, a mobile development team structure includes the following experts: a product or project manager, business analyst, UX/UI designer, iOS developer, Android developer, backend developer, and QA engineer.
• The composition of a mobile app development team depends on the project scope, the platforms you’re targeting, project deadlines, and the functionality you need to implement.
• While a single person can create an app, it usually takes an app development team to build and release a mobile application to the market.
• A lot of factors influence the cost of building an app, such as the outsourcing location, team composition, and project complexity.

Read more about Mobile App Development Team.