The list of specialties in the IT-sphere is quite wide: HR, Recruiter, DevOps, System admin, DBA, DevOps, Project manager, Frontend developer, Backend developer, QA-engineer.

In this article, we will focus only on key ones: Project manager, Frontend developer, Backend developer, and QA engineer.

QA Engineer

The easiest way to get into IT is to become a QA engineer. This is a specialist who:

• analyzes and ensures the quality of the product being developed;
• works on improving the testing process;
• detects bugs at all stages of development (based on the documentation).

There are several important positions in a testing company: manual QA Engineer (who analyzes and improves the testing process at all stages); automation QA Engineer (who develops tests and writes scripts providing automated testing services); and Quality Control specialist (who ensures the quality of the product).

Responsibilities of a QA engineer:

1. Studying and working with documentation at all the stages of software development;
2. Creating test scenarios,
3. Performing functional testing;
4. Analysis of the level of indicators of the work performed;
5. Preparing the documentation regarding the work performed;
6. Monitoring fixes;
7. Control of all the development stages;
8. Work with the development team.

QA engineers should meet the following criteria:

• Have experience with bug tracking systems;
• Know how to maintain and compile documentation (test plans, test cases, etc.);
• Be familiar with all stages of software development;
• Know HTTP, HTML, JSON, SQL, GitLab, Kubernetes;
• Have intermediate English level.

QA engineer in software testing companies also uses such tools as Selenium, UFT, TestComplete, Katalon Studio, etc. Therefore, it is important to know how to use these services, as well.

Project Manager (PM)

This is a specialist in the field of project management who improves coordination between all team members, prioritizes, controls, and plans assigned tasks, quickly solves unexpected problems. PM considers all the wishes and needs of customers and organizes effective work between team members. All this contributes to the favorable completion of the project.

The responsibilities of the Project manager include:

1. Define project goals;
2. Develop the project plan and approve project documentation;
3. Coordinate deadlines during the whole development process;
4. Control and manage project resources;
5. Improve communication between members of all teams involved in the project;
6. Control execution of project tasks, paying special attention to prioritizing tasks;
7. Resolve conflict issues both within teams and with a client;
8. Keep a client up to date with progress on a project, provide reports;
9. Prepare and organize meetings, as well as participate in interviews for new team members.

The project manager must have certain knowledge and skills:

1. English upper-intermediate;
2. Profound knowledge of project management;
3. Communication skills;
4. Ability to work with different email services, including correspondence with the client on behalf of the company;
5. Solving problematic issues at all stages of product development;
6. Control the project progress within the established schedule;
7. Ability to control the budget set earlier. If it is necessary to spend some extra money, argue this need.

Being a PM means working closely with people: different teams, clients, and company management. Therefore, these specialists must have good communication skills, which will contribute to the quality of their work.

The project manager specialty contributes to further career growth to the delivery manager, program manager, chief technical officer, chief executive officer, or account manager.

Frontend Developer

This developer is responsible for creating the user interface of a website, software, or application, that is, the visual part that users see and interact with. Frontend developers can grow in such specialties as team lead, tech lead, full-stack developer (with knowledge in the backend area), solution architect, and tech consultant.

Frontend developer’s responsibilities include:

1. Development of functionality;
2. Development of the website HTML page based on design layouts;
3. Work with the previous functionality;
4. Interaction with clients, members of the frontend and backend teams;
5. Technical implementation of the functionality of the graphical UI/UX layout;
6. Bug fixes.

Frontend developers must have a certain list of knowledge and skills:

1. English intermediate;
2. Be familiar with all stages of web development design, implementation, and deployment;
3. Git, Angular 5+, javascript (for programming user interfaces), typescript, sass, RxJS, and webpack;
4. Layout skills (HTML, CSS – the main tools of the frontend developer).

Backend Developer

This specialist works with the software and administrative part of the web application, the internal content of the system, and the server technology – the database, the architecture, and the program logic.

The backend developer should be proficient in Ruby, Java, PHP, C/C++, Python, and Perl; have English Intermediate; know SQL, PostgreSQL or MySQL, Git, and work with Codeigniter framework, Kohana, etc.   

Backend developer’s responsibilities:

• Functional development, including kernel creation, and code writing;
• Configuring the server;
• Bug fixes;
• Version control;
• Preparation of documentation;
• Close cooperation with other team members.

Conclusion

The demand for specialists in the high-tech industry grows every year. And obviously, the list above is not final. IT professionals are needed in many sectors of people’s lives. So everyone can find something for themselves and choose a profession to his/her liking, based on knowledge and priority of interests.