Team leaders are important in many industries, including software development. However, their specific role may differ from one company to another. Revature reviews mark that at times a team leader might simultaneously be the scrum master or a software architect. For a lot of software development companies, team leaders act as a link between the development team and the project manager. Usually, professionals rise to the role of team leader after holding positions as a developer, product manager, QA tester or other software development role.
Revature reviews provide a general overview of the role of a team leader in the software development
Team leaders at a software development company have to carry out a number of important responsibilities, including setting up clear standards and procedures of development. Software development must always run within a specific framework of procedures and standards that have been set up by the team leader. This would help in keeping the code clean and the entire process in check. Having a well organized and structured setup prevents chaos and allows new team members to be smoothly and swiftly on-boarded. Such an approach also improves the quality of the final product.
A team leader is meant to set the direction for development on a technical level. Providing proper instructions and making sure that it is carried out in the right manner is an important responsibility. A team leader should always give clear instructions, followed by a constructive explanation, if required. They must see to it that the business context of a project and the client’s requirements are properly acknowledged and understood by the whole team. A leader always knows exactly where the team is in the development process at any given moment.
According to Revature reviews, a good team leader also proves to be a skilled risk analyst in regards to technical issues. They have a plan in place for mitigating problems that may arise during software development or testing. It is their job to competently carry out detailed assessments for the purpose of making the right decisions, preventing potential issues from cropping up, solving emerging problems, and detecting business opportunities and trends that would be beneficial for the project. But this does not mean that the team leaders have to be experts at everything. Rather, they need to have the ability to make the best possible use of team expertise and resources, and know when external help might be beneficial.
It is up to the leader to get the software development team engaged and focused on the project at hand. To do their job properly, the team leaders must intertwine constructive criticism with positive motivation, and appreciate the efforts of the team members. A huge aspect of the problem-solving approach needed in software development is making sure that the team members communicate with each other effectively, no matter whether they are working together onsite or remotely. Hence, the team leaders must put in efforts on team building and try to foster good communication between team members.
