Job Titles in IT Department Explained in Short Summary
Programmer? QA? What is it?
Companies nowadays, whether big or small, have at least some form of Information Technology or IT department, especially those who run their business in Tech Service (Google, Facebook, Niagahoster, etc.). But did you know what sub-department there is in the IT department? Here is the summary of (hopefully) all of them
Software Developer
A Developer/programmer/coder, or formally called a software developer, is the person who develops, fixes bugs, and/or reviews the code of a software. Most programmers have broad computing and/or coding background in multiple programming languages and platforms such as PHP, Java, GoLang, etc.
Their responsibility usually includes, but are not limited to:
- System conception and design, if there are no dedicated System Architects
- System development (writing code)
- Debugging
- Implementation
- Maintenance
Quality Assurance Engineer (QA Engineer)
As a software user base grows bigger and bigger, maintaining the quality of the product will become harder and harder. That is where QA Engineer is needed. QA Engineer is the person who is making sure that the released software is in high quality. The person who has this title usually works together with a software engineer.
Their responsibility usually includes, but are not limited to:
- Doing testing (Integration Testing, Feature Testing, System Testing, etc.)
- Creating risk analysis
- Creating automated test script
- Creating test plan
- Created product standard and procedure
- Looking for bugs in the software
System Architects
System architects are the person who defines the architecture of software to fulfill certain requirements defined by the product manager or any person who is responsible for the business process. Defining the architecture of software can mean breaking down the system into components, defining component interactions, and/or deciding on the technologies to be used in the software.
Their responsibility usually includes, but are not limited to:
- Planning overall design
- Customizing customer needs and explaining in layman terms
- Creating system definition documents
- Doing cost analysis
- Provisioning and doing maintenance across multiple locations
Release Engineer
While it is may sound practical for a new website version to be deployed immediately after the product is completed, it is not feasible for a mobile application to be deployed and updated every minute. Due to this reason, a release engineer is required. A release engineer is a person who is responsible for the mechanics of the development and processing of software products.
Their responsibility usually includes, but are not limited to:
- Oversee and control the proper placement and deployment of the source code
- Ensure that each code is entered in the software code repository and is ready for media duplication and distribution.
- Creating changelog in layman terms
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
In the words of Ben Treynor, SRE is “what happens when you ask a software engineer to design an operations function.”. In other words, SRE is the person who bridges the gap between IT Operations / Operation Team and Software Engineer.
Their responsibility usually includes, but are not limited to:
- Update or create the software to improve the reliability of a system in the production environment,
- Fixing issues that were raised due to errors other than the one that inflicted from the source code
- Responding to incidents with the software
Security Analyst
As the name defines, a security analyst is a person who analyzes potential security issues and maintains data safety in the company.
Their responsibility usually includes, but are not limited to:
- Monitor technology vulnerabilities issue
- Change or install security support software
- Doing testing with the existing system
- Standard Operational Procedure Planning for data security
- Compile data security reports in the company
System Administrator
Usually abbreviated as sysadmin, a system administrator is the person is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of servers. The difference between system administrator and site reliability engineer is the specialty of them both, sysadmin usually has more specialty for the specific system while SRE works in a more general way (not specific to certain systems).
Their responsibility usually includes, but are not limited to:
- Analyze system log and identify potential issues with computer systems
- Apply updates, patches, and configuration changes to a certain system
- Installing and configuring new hardware or software
- Adding, removing, or updating user information, passwords, etc.
- Answering technical queries and assisting users
- Documenting changes to the configuration of the system
- Troubleshoot any reported problems
- System performance optimization
Database Engineer
A database engineer is a person who creates and/or manages databases within a company or organization to suit a purpose. They also need to make sure that the database is secure and function properly.
Their responsibility usually includes, but are not limited to:
- Install, upgrade, and maintain databases.
- Document any changes to database schemas and models, including functions, tables, and stored procedures as well as data dictionaries.
- Monitor databases and apply patches, execute scripts, and create backups to ensure access and the consistency of data.
- Support and maintain software to access the databases.