A development lead is someone who is in charge of overseeing the work of other app developers. Unlike other IT management positions, the development lead is not responsible for overseeing workplace issues such as employee performance issues, team assignments, or human resources concerns. Instead, the development lead oversees the development, deployment, and debugging of a project’s code. Rather than the employee, the lead’s work with other application developers revolves around this supervision of the coding process.
The first stage of the software development lifecycle is planning. In most cases, the development lead enters the project at some point during the planning phase and speaks to the development team’s capabilities. The development lead’s job will be to look over what the business analyst and client decided about a project’s deadlines and resource allocation, and see if the requirements are compatible with the software developers’ abilities.
Following the completion of the project’s planning phase, the development lead begins to distribute portions of the code. Even if such leaders haven’t worked in active coding in years, they need to know how complicated each project component will be. Each member of the development team will be assigned work based on how advanced their skills are. The development team members will work independently on their code while the lead monitors their progress and makes any necessary changes to the assignments.
The lead works to ensure that all parts of the program are progressing during the active coding phase of software development. He’ll also double-check that the project’s overall functionality is working. When sections of code don’t work well together, the lead must work with the programmers to make the necessary changes. If there are concerns about the project’s timeline or a specific developer’s ability to meet the requirements, the programming lead may step in to code.
The work of a software development lead does not end when active coding on a project is completed. During the debugging and testing phases, the lead will provide assistance. During this time, the development leads review all code to ensure that it meets the development environment’s requirements. Once the code has been deployed to the production database, the development lead is on hand to address any issues that arise, whether they are minor syntax errors or major issues with how the code behaves once it has been deployed.