Mobile App Development Team: Key Roles

According to available data, 70% of all US digital media time comes from mobile apps. This information proves that mobile apps’ popularity has skyrocketed in recent years. If you want to take on this lucrative niche, then now is the right time. However, building an effective mobile solution takes a long way. The success of the entire project depends not only on a good idea, quality execution, and relevance of the product itself. According to statistics, great developers account for only 20% of your mobile app success. 80% is down to good product management.

For this process to be effective, you should cooperate with a highly-skilled and experienced mobile app development team. Yojji has experienced professionals on board; they are always ready to develop a digital solution in any niche. In this article, we will outline the structure of a mobile app development team, the roles of team members, and give tips on how to find specialists who are great at what they do.

Structure of a Mobile App Development Team

Creating cutting-edge apps requires an agile team structure. A number of team members depend on the project scope, its complexity, budget, timeframe, and development approach. Regardless of the team size, it always features vital positions. The consolidated efforts of all team members contribute to the overall success. Below, we will briefly describe the role of each employee.

Product owner

This person coordinates the work of all team members and serves as a kind of liaison between developers and other workmates. The product owner oversees the process of creating the application, optimizes the product development work, and ensures that the application offers the maximum value to end-users.

Project manager/product manager

Some people mistakenly believe that project and product managers have the same tasks. But in fact, their roles are different. A project manager coordinates the plan of activities and makes sure all team members work within a specified timeframe, and meet all quality standards.

Main responsibilities

• Identifying the main tasks and priorities, dividing the development process into sprints and setting deadlines for each sprint, as well as distributing tasks among developers.
• Evaluation of the project and monitoring compliance with the budget.
• Coordinating communication between the customer and the developers.
• Making necessary changes in the development process and adapting the project, according to changes in project requirements or goals.
• Monitoring the quality of the product and meeting deadlines.

Main skills

• Critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, and leadership skills.
• Experience in using various project management tools (Asana, TeamGantt).
• Understanding of basic project management methodologies.

A product manager analyzes the competitiveness of the product, analyzes the viability of the idea, and creates a list of the main advantages of the product that improve its performance.

Main responsibilities

• Analyzing the market, the target audience, and defining the application’s core values and functions.
• Proposing the best solutions to solve users’ problems.
• Outlining a business plan.
• Creation of a unique value application.

Main skills

• Leadership, excellent time-management skills, ability to work in a team, and experience in using various analytics tools (Google Analytics, Firebase).

UI/UX designer

UI/UX designers make sure your app offers a colorful, intuitive, and attractive design and flawless user experience.

Main responsibilities

• Creating a user image, analyzing user flows, and creating an application framework.
• Building an application prototype.
• Creating a clear and pleasant interface.
• Making changes based on user feedback and testing results.

Main skills

• Experience with the necessary tools (Figma, Sketch, InVision).
• Basic knowledge of coding.
• In-depth knowledge of interactive design, prototyping, and wireframing.

iOS and Android developers

Depending on the platform your future application will be deployed to, you opt for devs with the required tech stack. You can build your app for one platform or opt for cross-platform development, everything depends on your business goals and needs.

Main responsibilities

• Transforming mockups and wireframes into a great app.
• Creating reliable, reusable, and high-quality code.
• Ensuring high responsiveness and performance of mobile applications.
• Making changes and fixing bugs if needed.
• Updating the app.

Main skills of iOS devs

• High level of proficiency in Objective-C and Swift.
• Knowledge of Xcode IDE.
• Ability to create apps for the latest generations of iOS.

Main skills of Android devs

• Extensive knowledge of Kotlin and Java.
• Extensive experience in using Android Studio and IDE.
• Ability to develop applications that work on different versions of Android and adapt to various devices with different screen sizes.

Main skills of full-stack devs

• Hands-on experience using React Native, Flutter, Xamarin, and Ionic.

QA engineer

The quality assurance engineer (QA) is one of the key players in any team, as this specialist carefully monitors every stage of development, and ensures that the entire application and separate components meet all customer requirements, as well as the latest industry standards for performance, security, and user-friendliness. Timely detection of all inconsistencies and bug fixes will not only help avoid cost overruns but also get the product to market on time.

Main responsibilities

• Performing manual and automatic testing.
• Documentation of test results.
• Identification of potential problems that the users may encounter.
• Development of clear testing standards for application quality analysis.
• Adapting an app to various devices.

Main skills

• Extensive practical experience in using TestComplete, Appium, and Robotium testing tools.
• Knowledge of various feature and bug tracking systems (e.g. Jira).

Finding a Professional Mobile App Development Team

For developing your future mobile application, you can either cooperate with your in-house team or outsource your project to external experts.

In-house

Hiring a team of employees and making them work cohesively is quite an expensive and time-consuming process. Especially for startups, which often have no experience in building and managing a team and have a limited budget. Besides, formal employment of workers and preparation of documentation can outweigh the benefits of working with an in-house team.

Outsourcing

Partnering with a professional external software vendor is a blast. A group of specialists is refined and comes set in stone processes and standards. A reliable vendor will estimate the cost of developing a mobile app, do a quality job, and accompany you through the entire process. As a rule, this approach allows you to develop an app cheaper and faster. Yojji can provide highly-skilled software engineers, business analysts, QA specialists, and project/product managers who will bring your idea to life.

Bottom Line

Thus, the team that works on the development of the mobile app includes top specialists who work together to present a flawless digital solution. Assembling a top-notch bunch of professionals is not an easy matter. Therefore, we recommend you partner with outstanding experts who got game. Yojji can develop your project from scratch or provide the necessary expertise to expand the capabilities of your in-house team. For more details and terms of cooperation, please reach out to us.