Certification - January 2009 - (Page 30)

JOB ROlEs lead Applications developer: The IT Ambassador dEANNA hARTlEY Picture, for a minute, a scene at the United Nations: You’ve got each different country represented by an ambassador, with each ambassador bringing the insight and perspective of his or her people to the table. Now, translate this scenario to the workplace. If a company represents the world and the various departments within the company are the countries, a lead applications developer would be the IT department’s ambassador. The person in this job role typically represents projects from an engineering perspective and communicates the status and plans to outside teams, said Matthew Konda, senior architect at Trustwave, a provider of data security and payment card industry compliance management solutions. “[Lead applications developers] need to be able to participate, in detail, in a cross-department process while effectively leading the technical development of the actual project,” Konda said. said it’s particularly beneficial for a lead applications developer to exhibit strong project management skills. He or she will be able to keep the big business picture in mind and delegate specific tasks effectively, he said. “The lead applications developer is really at the forefront of sketching out the specs for the application, understanding exactly what use cases are there and then drilling down into the details of what needs to be included in the code,” Shade said. While the job responsibilities of a lead applications developer may vary depending on the organization, A lead applications developer should be able to receive input from both his technical and nontechnical counterparts. one competency requirement remains consistent: providing technical leadership. “Technical leadership includes everything from making design decisions at a coding level to enforcing quality standards within the code base,” Konda said. “A technical leader needs to stay up-to-date on different technologies and have background that includes exposure to a broad set of real-life implementations,” Konda explained. “Ultimately, the lead applications developer needs to be the authority on how to make sure an application does what it’s supposed to do in a cost-effective and maintainable way.” In addition, a lead applications developer should be able to receive input from both his technical and nontechnical counterparts. “They are, in many ways, a key hub of knowledge and communication, which can be instrumental in forging successful alliances across business divisions — from [quality assurance] to IT to marketing to product management,” Konda said. “The lead applications developer often needs to build subject matter expertise to effectively communicate with stakeholders and ensure that the requirements are being met.” Some organizations delegate additional responsibilities to people in this job role. At Trustwave, for instance, the lead applications developer also takes on the role of key project planner. “[Our] philosophy is that the project planning is intimately tied to the technical implementation,” Konda said. “Understanding risk and timeline tradeoffs is inherently tied to the technical details.” Terry Shade, chief operations officer at TalentDrive, a company that provides talent sourcing solutions, hands-On Experience There are a few standard academic routes to becoming a lead applications developer. According to Shade, the majority of people in this job role have a bachelor’s degree in an area such as computer science, mathematics or statistics. A degree in information systems also is quite common from a pure development standpoint. Nevertheless, a handful of professionals in this role emerge from unexpected educational backgrounds. Konda pointed out how a number of music majors 0 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE January 2009

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification - January 2009

Certification - January 2009 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Virtual Village Tech Careers Dear Techie Academic Connection Troubleshooting What We Like Look Ahead The New Convergence Formula Cybersecurity: Are You Safe? Interface Lead Applications Developer: The IT Ambassador Inside Certification Ad Index Endtag

Certification - January 2009

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