Bill Pyne
Posts: 165
Nickname: billpyne
Registered: Jan, 2007
|
|
Re: Developers' Changing Roles
|
Posted: Jun 29, 2007 10:36 AM
|
|
> Anyway, how would you say it is related to size and
> business focus?
>
> I would say it mostly depends on the IT/development
> organization. Some organizations promote acquiring domain
> knowledge. Some emphasise only technical knowledge.
> Developers also tend to gravitate one way or the other.
I agree that it is organization dependent. Let me use some examples to explain what I meant. A number of years ago I worked in the IT department for a hospital. We had precisely two developers, including myself, and a UNIX administrator. The IT department was small enough that, in order to work on their electronic patient chart system, I sat with the clinicians as they used our system and was able to see first hand how they use information we provided. It gave me an application domain knowledge that I don't believe a developer in a medical software company would have. Contrast this experience with my following job which was developing software for a financial company. The development staff was much larger - around 90 people including analysts. On one particularly large project, I was not allowed to talk with the user community. All knowledge of the business came through business analysts. I believe organizational size determines how much specialization can occur. At the hospital, I did analysis, coding, database administration, support, and project management. At the finance company, we had business analysts, DBA's, support staff, and project managers. The finance company simply had a larger staff, which allowed for specialization.
Referring back to my comment about a hypothetical developer in a medical software company versus me in a hospital IT shop. The hypothetical developer would probably have a much greater knowledge of traditional computer science topics, for instance algorithmic analysis or language design, than I would because I'm not being called on to know those areas: it was not what the hospital cared about. Where a software company benefits by having very technically skilled developers, my employer cared more about my having a greater understanding of how its people worked. (I'm not implying that developers in a medical software company don't acquire knowledge of the users' needs over time, but it takes longer than it does for someone working directly with a physician for instance.)
> Overall I would say the "industry" is far more concerned
> with technical skills, but our customers are far more
> balanced.
The technology industry is definitely more concerned with technical skills. When developers work for non-technology industries, e.g. financial/medical/etc., there's less emphasis on technical skills and much more on understanding the organization and how the software is used.
I hope I've clarified what I meant.
|
|
Previous Topic
