Tag: role

Who we call as software developer? After I see Burcu’s blog, the demand from the companies to be more specific, I had a second thought about the roles in real life… I find it hard to imagine a task specified on a distinct skill set on development environment. Even if my role is lead developer in an e-commerce business, and I have three business analysts, 2 project managers on my team, I can start coding after 5 pm; when people start to leave the office. The communication and maintanence tasks during the day becomes the most important thing, and there are plenty of meetings to discuss any new improvement/problem. After 5, I can have time to finish the projects’ task [coding].
Either the real life is simple, and I do not know the way to make it simpler or this is the most common path every developer faces. Since you are the most skilled person to solve the questions, your contribution is appreciated on many parts of the business. Lifecycle of the projects require lots of commitment and there are lots of challenges out there.

Projects:

Analysis phase can’t continue with a consultancy from a lead developer. Almost all meetings require the developer.

Design phase is done by the developer.

Developer is keener to create documentation [as a result of enough bad experience caused by not creating documentation and answering lots of similar questions]

Coding phase is the easiest part [smallest amount of time]

Meeting for testing scenarios phase starts. Creating data, simulating environments, solving problems with configurations/settings.

Deployment is always done by them…[even if it is not their project]

Testing with the help of testers and business analysts; then bugfixing starts.

When they think they can take a deep breathe, release starts; and after the release they have a brand new project!

During this cycle[regardless of they are waterfall or spiral, etc…] there backend tasks:

Deployments, code review [they are lucky if they are doing this; since this means candidate good develoeprs are on the way]

Merges of branches, and source control management are done daily. [not to mention conflicts and problems with builds]

Maintainance of the environments, and finding problems, solving…

Live issues, [emergent ones] need immediate attention

Ongoing support for ordinary questions/known problems[the ones we can’t solve not having budget/time]

Training/knowledge sharing with other developers.

The list goes on…
Throghout eight years, I have not come up with a job that has only one task: coding.
Development includes
a system that is alive, needs attention all the time.
people, requires communication, knowledge sharing
projects, needs exploration of new ideas, as well as integration of old system with new one.

What else do you developers do in your day?