Introduction
Software engineering is very critical and playing a vital role in the modern world. This is the time of tablet, laptop, and other digital instruments and all most everything needs software.
Software industries are very popular and profit-making industry. Many countries like India totally depend on IT as it is helping to grow its economy.
Software engineering is having many roles and responsibility, please find it below and we will explain them one by one.
- Product Manager
- Technical Project Manager
- Software Architect
- Business Analyst
- Technical Team Lead
- Testing Team Lead
- Software Developer
- Software Tester
Product Manager
The Product Manager is an important organizational role typically in a technology company. It is similar in concept to a brand manager at a consumer packaged goods company. The product manager is often considered the CEO of the product and is responsible for the strategy, roadmap, and feature definition for that product or product line. The position may also include marketing, forecasting, and profit and loss (P&L) responsibilities.
The product manager often analyzes market and competitive conditions and lays out a product vision that is differentiated and delivers unique value based on customer demands. The role of the product manager spans many activities from strategic to tactical and at its best provides cross-functional leadership—bridging gaps within the company between different functions, most notably between engineering-oriented teams, sales and marketing, and support.
The product manager is the person responsible for defining the ‘why’, ‘what,’ and ‘when’ of the product that the engineering team will build. They are the CEO of their product — which means they lead cross-functional teams from a product’s conception through to its launch.
Technical Project Manager
Technical Project Manager, Also known as computer and information systems managers, technical project managers play an essential role in various organizations. Requiring a balance between managerial duties and advanced technological skills, project managers are integral to project development and success. Individuals in this career need to be able to work with other department managers to meet the company’s technological and project goals, creating software and designating tasks to employees for a smooth operation. Technical project managers manage hardware and software installation and upgrades while maintaining internal and external sites. Strict deadlines and long hours are part of technical project manager jobs, and individuals need to have flexibility and open communication at all times while working within strict budgets. Managers need to be able to review and determine the feasibility of project proposals.
Software Architect
A software architect is responsible for creating or selecting the most appropriate architecture for a system(s), such that it suits the business needs, satisfies stakeholder requirements, and achieves the desired results under given constraints. This article describes the endless responsibilities of a software architect and attempts to recognize human personality traits that naturally serve a person in such position.
An architect abstracts the complexity of a system into a manageable model that describes the essence of a system by exposing important details and significant constraints.
An architect maintains control over the architecture life cycle parallel to the project’s software development life cycle. Although an architect may be most visible during the requirements and design stages of a project life cycle, he or she must proactively monitor the adherence of the implementation to the chosen architecture during all iterations. Architecture on paper is fruitless unless implemented proficiently.
An architect stays on course in line with the long-term vision. When project’s scope creep attempts to manipulate software architecture in a certain way in order to satisfy the desires of myriad stakeholders the architect must know when to say “NO” to select requests in order to say “YES” to others. An architect must focus on actions that produce results early while staying on course for the long term. When project variables outside of one’s control change the architect must adjust the strategy given the resource available while maintaining the long-term goal.
An architect progressively makes critical decisions that define a specific direction for a system in terms of implementation, operations, and maintenance. The critical decisions must be faithfully made and backed up by understanding and evaluation of alternative options. These decisions usually result in tradeoffs that principally define characteristics of a system. Additionally, these decisions must be well documented in a manner understood by others.
An architect sets quantifiable objectives that encapsulate quality attributes of a system. The fitness of the architecture is measured against set marks.
An architect works closely with executives to explain the benefits and justify the investment in the software architecture of a solution. This may be done by participating in business process re-engineering activities, by using Cost Benefit Analysis Method, or by measuring the level of component/architecture re-use between projects with the help from the software process improvement team. The software architect must be effective in order to deliver results that are meaningful to the projects that have an impact on the bottom line that result in greater profits.
An architect inspires, mentors, and encourages colleagues to apply intelligently customized industry’s best practices. Educating the recipients and participants of the system architecture is essential to successfully selling the chosen architectural path. Specifically, the stakeholders must be able to understand, evaluate, and reason about software architecture. If an architect is the only one who can read and understand documented system architecture, then he has failed to integrate his best practices into the organizational culture.
An architect fights entropy that threatens architect’s structural approach to problem-solving. It’s an architect’s job to keep the inertia going once the project is in progress. He or she must convince all relevant stakeholders that the chosen approach is sound – moreover the chosen architectural solution must be well explained and justified. The benefits of implementing a system in a particular way must be explained not only in terms of “that’s the right pattern for this problem,” but also to demonstrate the measurable benefits – such as easier integration. For example, in a product line approach an architect must be able to demonstrate how the subsequent projects will be easier to implement due to the presence of a common base from which subsequent work can be done.
An architect creates and distributes tailored views of software architectures to appropriate stakeholders at appropriate intervals. For example, a customer may demand to become more involved with a project and they may need to know an abstract view of a system on the level understood by them. A government customer may require an architect to demonstrate early in the project how a given system meets High-Level Architecture requirements for a specific framework. It’s the architect’s responsibility to identify and present a sufficient level of information that a customer needs.
An architect acts as an agent of change in organizations where process maturity is not sufficient for creating and maintaining architecture development. If the concept of software architecture is not well recognized in an organization it may be a “tough” sell to formally recognize the role of software architecture in an SDLC. Without senior management commitment and without mature software development process, the architecture of the system on paper may not reflect the actual architecture of a system.
Business Analyst
Business analysis has emerged as a core business practice in the 21st century. As the vital link between a firm’s information technology capabilities and its business objectives, skilled business analysts contribute to the profitability of companies large and small, in almost every industry. Business analyst training can help you seize opportunities presented by a rapidly changing marketplace, by preparing you with the skills modern organizations need to remain competitive.
In today’s complex business environment, an organization’s adaptability, agility, and ability to manage constant change through innovation can be keys to success. Traditional methods may no longer lead to reaching objectives when economic conditions are unfavorable. That’s where business analysis comes in. Corporations achieve goals through projects that translate customer needs into new products, services, and profits. Business analysts can make it all happen more efficiently and effectively.
The business analyst’s primary objective is helping businesses implement technology solutions in a cost-effective way by determining the requirements of a project or program and communicating them clearly to stakeholders, facilitators and partners.
Business analysts typically take the lead role in:
- Assisting with the business case
- Planning and monitoring
- Eliciting requirements
- Requirements organization
- Translating and simplifying requirements
- Requirements management and communication
- Requirements analysis
Technical Team Lead
There are many names for leadership roles in software development such as Senior Developer, Architect, Technical Lead, Team Lead, and Engineering Manager. These are just a few. To me, the Technical Leader (Tech Lead) plays a unique and essential role that others cannot.
The Short: A Tech Lead is a developer who is responsible for leading a development team.
The Long: Leading a development team is no easy task. An effective Tech Lead establishes a technical vision with the development team and works with developers to turn it into reality. Along the way, a Tech Lead takes on traits that other roles may have, such as a Team Lead, Architect or Software Engineering Manager but they remain hands-on with code.
To make the most effective choices and to maintain trust and empathy with developers, a Tech Lead must code.
Technical Lead setup a benchmark to other developers and always work closely with management ad Team.
Becoming a Tech Lead is a tough transition for any developer, because only part of the skills and experience you had as a developer prepares you for the expectations of a new role. Instead of simply designing and writing code, a Tech Lead is suddenly responsible for an entire development team – and this means dealing with people, both technical and non-technical.
The time a developer spent focusing on writing well-designed code does not translate into the skills necessary for understanding people, resolving conflict, or suddenly having to juggle more tasks than they can possibly achieve by themselves.
I present 5 tips for being an effective Tech Lead.
- Learn to Delegate
- Find Time to Code
- Visualize Your Architecture
- Spend Time 1-on-1 with Team Members
- Learn to Speak the Language of the Business
Testing Team Lead
The Role of Test Lead is to effectively lead the testing team. To fulfill this role the Lead must understand the discipline of testing and how to effectively implement a testing process while fulfilling the traditional leadership roles of a manager. What does this mean? The manager must manage and implement or maintain an effective testing process. This involves creating a test infrastructure that supports robust communication and a cost-effective testing framework.
The Test Lead is responsible for:
* Defining and implementing the role testing plays within the organizational structure.
* Defining the scope of testing within the context of each release/delivery.
* Deploying and managing the appropriate testing framework to meet the testing mandate.
* Implementing and evolving appropriate measurements and metrics.
o To be applied to the Product under test.
o To be applied to the Testing Team.
* Planning, deploying and managing the testing effort for any given engagement/release.
* Managing and growing Testing assets required for meeting the testing mandate:
o Team Members
o Testing Tools
o Testing Process
* Retaining skilled testing personnel.
The Test Lead must understand how testing fits into the organizational structure, in other words, clearly define its role within the organization. this is often accomplished by crafting a Mission Statement or a defined Testing Mandate. For example:
“To prevent, detect, record, and manage defects within the context of a defined release.”
Testing Lead should have or enhance skills –
- Learn how to influence project members in a positive way
- Report your findings in context of its business value
- Be a provider of information and service, rather than a process enforcer
- Learn to provide and identify information to make informed decisions versus simple “bug notes”
- Focus on exploring and learning about the products that you test
- Learn to identify items that slow down testing
- Sharpen your technical, testing and business skills
- Share your experiences – successes and failures
- Recognize the extent that automation offers to your project, and also identify its limits
Software Developer
Software Developer(s) are very important and critical for software development as they are the actual unit who build and execute the project. As a software engineer, you’ll be working with a team of developers on diverse projects. To be successful in this role, programmers must demonstrate their knowledge of critical thinking, and problem-solving. Proficiency with C#, C++, Objective-C, or JavaScriptis required.
Duties and Responsibilities
- Coordinate with the Technical Director of current programming
tasks. - Collaborate with other programmers to design and implement
features. - Quickly produce well-organized, optimized, and documented source code.
- Create and document software tools required by artists or
other developers. - Debug existing source code and polish feature sets.
- Contribute to technical design documentation.
- Work independently when required.
- Continuously learn and improve skills.
- Attention to detail is essential and all tasks must be carried out to the highest standard.
Software Tester
A software tester is a very important and critical role in building and executing software project(s). Software tester role is very critical and not recognized in most of the project(s).
Software tester thinks and executes testing out of the box and testing thoroughly. They should have good analytical and lateral thinking along with software testing technologies.
Below are some of the basic roles and responsibilities that a manual tester follows irrespective of the organization he/she is working on:
• Requirement analysis
• Creating Test plans
• Writing Test Scenarios/Test cases
• Test Plan/Test Case/Test Scenario Reviews
• Identifying Test data requirements
• Test automation
• Test Execution
• Defect logging/follow-up
• Test reporting
• Summarizing the release with learning from the project.