Which developers do what?
Demistifying Complex Roles
For a few days, we’ll explain the role of different types of software developers. Let’s start with the basics:
Web Developer/Frontend Developer
Builds websites. Focuses on the visual side. What you see. The web developer needs to translate a design built using a prototyping tool such as Figma or Adobe Illustrator. They bring that design to life. Performance and fluidity are important here. Even if the finished product matches the design exactly, but is jerky to interact with, that’s a problem. React is currently a popular framework for web development. Frameworks change rapidly, though. Many web developers use third-party website builders such as WordPress or Wix. This is largely seen as an unsustainable long-term approach in the industry. Sooner or later, these tools will reach a ceiling if the application needs many custom features.
Backend Developer
The primary focuses are data storage and security. That may sound simple. It’s not. Architecting the backend requires advanced programming ability. Backend developers are constantly talking about endpoints. Endpoints are points of contact with the backend that will fetch specific portions of data. All the data can’t be fetched at once. That would slow the application to a crawl. Backend developers split the data into smaller chunks so the frontend only fetches what it needs. They will also give the frontend information about an error. Whenever you see an error code such as 403, 404, or 500, it’s coming from the backend. If the backend is built well, it will also supply a description of the error for quicker resolution.
Engineering Manager
Responsible for ensuring everyone has work to do, is clear on requirements, and stays unblocked. Like any manager, their performance is based on their team’s success. For Engineering teams, success is difficult to quantify. Some teams use Project Management Tickets as a metric. Or worse, lines of code. What’s much more accurate is customer feedback on quality and experience. Sadly, Engineers are often the furthest possible distance away from customers. An Engineering Manager who can keep engineers abreast of customers’ needs without distracting is worth their weight in gold.
DevOps Engineer
Wears many hats. Their primary focuses are deployment and security. They release the work that frontend and backend engineers are working on to the outside world. They are well-versed in Cloud Infrastructure tools like AWS and Google Cloud Platform. They will often set up application logging so that other Engineers can more easily investigate issues in production, i.e. the version of the application that is accessible publicly. When something goes wrong, they are the first point of contact as they have the most capabilities to resolve the issue. Common things they may do in an emergency are
Adding more resources to the server if it’s not capable of withstanding the traffic
Running commands, the application needs to reboot.
Identifying and blocking nefarious sources of traffic, such as bots.
They will also write or contribute heavily to a post-mortem document to identify the root cause of issues and prevent a repeat.
Other roles exist like Software Architect, Security Engineer, Mobile Developer, and Data Scientist.
More tomorrow.