The conurbation of roles in agile development squads represents the intersection and interdependence of technical functions, such as SREs, Frontend and Backend Developers. This implies specific challenges for technical leaders, who must navigate an environment where the boundaries between responsibilities are fluid and competencies overlap. The challenges include:
Responsibility Definition: Clear demarcation of responsibilities is complex when roles share tasks, such as performance optimization, which can be a gray area between SREs and Backend Developers.
Technical Competency Development: Technological evolution requires professionals to have competencies that transcend their traditional specializations, such as Frontend Developers with knowledge in Backend.
Effective Communication: Close collaboration between distinct functions demands effective communication to avoid misunderstandings and ensure that all squad members are aligned with common goals.
Functional Boundaries Management: Establishing clear boundaries between roles is essential to prevent redundancies and gaps in responsibilities, which requires assertive and conscious technical leadership.
Collaboration Culture: Promoting a work culture that values collaboration, continuous learning, and knowledge sharing is fundamental in a less hierarchical squad model.
Adaptation to Technological Changes: Technical leaders must be prepared to guide their teams through rapid and frequent technological changes, which requires flexibility and an agile mindset.
What is the role of an SRE in a squad?
An SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) in a squad plays a crucial role in ensuring the reliability and stability of systems. Here are some of the typical responsibilities and interactions of an SRE in a squad:
Responsibilities: The SRE is responsible for ensuring the reliability and stability of the systems that the squad is developing and maintaining. This includes the development of automation solutions for repetitive tasks, monitoring systems to identify and respond to incidents, and capacity planning to ensure that systems can handle the anticipated demand.
Collaboration: The SRE works closely with other squad members, which may include developers, UX designers, and others. They may interact with system architects to ensure that the systems being developed are scalable and can handle the anticipated load.
Relationship with Other Roles: The SRE acts as a bridge between the development and operations teams, contributing to the culture of reliability engineering. They help ensure that development and operations practices are aligned with the system’s reliability and stability objectives.
What is the role of a Frontend Developer in a squad?
A Frontend Developer in a squad plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining the user interface of an application or website. Here are some of the typical responsibilities and interactions of a Frontend Developer in a squad:
Responsibilities: The Frontend Developer is responsible for developing an interface that allows the user to achieve their goals intuitively. This includes creating the visual and interactive part of websites and applications, optimizing the user experience, ensuring responsiveness and compatibility across devices and browsers, and implementing SEO.
Collaboration: The Frontend Developer works closely with other squad members, which may include UI/UX designers, backend developers, and others. They collaborate with UI/UX designers to translate visuals into code and work alongside backend developers to integrate APIs and services.
Relationship with Other Roles: The Frontend Developer acts as the bridge between graphic design and programming. They directly impact the end user experience. In addition, they may also interact with the Technical Leader (Tech Lead), who guides the squad, manages the project, ensures fluid communication, controls the project pipeline and ensures deliveries, manages the technical team, maintaining a healthy work environment, researches new technologies and shares the culture of innovation, and takes on a mentoring role, helping individual members individually.
What is the role of a Backend Developer in a squad?
A Backend Developer in a squad plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining the server logic and backstage functionalities of an application or website. Here are some of the typical responsibilities and interactions of a Backend Developer in a squad:
Responsibilities: The Backend Developer is responsible for developing, testing, and maintaining the code that controls the operation of the server, database, and other backstage functionalities. This includes creating and implementing the business rules and functionalities of a digital system, modeling and managing relational and non-relational databases, developing APIs that allow integration between front-end and back-end, and ensuring good performance, scalability, and security of the application.
Collaboration: The Backend Developer works closely with other squad members, which may include frontend developers, UI/UX designers, and others. They collaborate with frontend developers to ensure that the server logic supports the user interface.
Relationship with Other Roles: The Backend Developer is responsible for the ‘invisible’ functionality that supports the frontend. They play a crucial role in data security and integrity. In addition, they may also interact with the Technical Leader (Tech Lead), who guides the squad, manages the project, ensures fluid communication, controls the project pipeline and ensures deliveries, manages the technical team, maintaining a healthy work environment, researches new technologies and shares the culture of innovation, and takes on a mentoring role, helping individual members.
| Criterion | SRE | Frontend Developer | Backend Developer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Responsibilities | – Ensure the reliability and stability of systems. – Develop automation solutions. – Monitor systems and respond to incidents. – Capacity planning and risk management. | – Create the visual and interactive part of websites and applications. – Optimize the user experience. – Ensure responsiveness and compatibility across devices and browsers. – Implement SEO. | – Develop and maintain the server side of applications. – Manage databases and business logic. – Ensure system security and performance. – Integrate APIs and external services. |
| Technical Skills | – Knowledge in automation and CI/CD tools. – Skills in monitoring and alerts. – Experience with programming languages and scripts. – Knowledge in networks and operating systems. | – Mastery of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. – Experience with frameworks like React or Angular. – Knowledge in responsive and cross-browser design. – Familiarity with design tools like Adobe XD or Sketch. | – Proficiency in programming languages like Java, Python, Ruby or PHP. – Experience with backend frameworks. – Knowledge in SQL and NoSQL databases. – Skills in creating and managing APIs. |
| Collaboration | – Works closely with development and operations teams. – Interacts with system architects to ensure scalability. | – Collaborates with UI/UX designers to translate visuals into code. – Works alongside backend developers to integrate APIs and services. | – Collaborates with frontend developers to ensure that the server logic supports the user interface. – Works with database and security teams. |
| Relationship with Other Roles | – Acts as a bridge between operations and development (DevOps). – Contributes to the culture of reliability engineering. | – Is the bridge between graphic design and programming. – Directly impacts the end user experience. | – Responsible for the ‘invisible’ functionality that supports the frontend. – Plays a crucial role in data security and integrity. |
| Relationship between Roles | – Collaborates with Frontend and Backend Developers to ensure the reliability and stability of systems. – Provides feedback and guidance to optimize performance and scalability. | – Works together with the Backend Developer to integrate the user interface with the server logic. – Collaborates with the SRE to ensure that the user interface is stable and reliable. | – Works together with the Frontend Developer to provide a stable and efficient API. – Collaborates with the SRE to ensure that the server logic is reliable and scalable. |