Now, more than ever, we see digitalization in all industries, for example in finance, healthcare and transportation. Of course, it’s sometimes difficult to integrate technology into a business without qualified tech professionals, which is why many organizations choose to have in-house tech teams.
However, each and every company in the world today has different needs, they face different business problems, and they use different technologies. Therefore, the size, roles, and structures of their tech teams vary greatly.
In this article, we will talk about the most common types of tech teams, their roles, and responsibilities.
Responsibilities of tech teams
The type of tech team a company has depends on what tech needs that business has. Usually, techteams take care of these areas:
- Managing and maintaining tech systems — tech teams maintain and upgrade systems that are being used by the company and its employees.
- Automating processes — tech teams use appropriate technology to automate various business operations.
- System integration — tech teams are responsible for integrating the various systems a company uses.
- Managing data — tech teams take care of storing, protecting, validating, and processing data.
- System security — tech teams develop and implement procedures to make that operating systems work effectively.
- Technology support — tech teams assist users when they need help with technology and they fix operating systems when they malfunction.
Now that we know what responsibilities tech teams usually have, let’s move on to what types of teams you see across different companies.
Types of Tech Teams
Although businesses have their own tech needs, you typically see the same kinds of tech areas being covered by each business. Here are the types of tech teams you typically see in companies today:
- Tech Architects — are responsible for selecting and optimizing technology and methodologies that businesses use to meet their goals.
- Operations — are focused on managing tech infrastructure, maintenance, and monitoring. They ensure that networks, or data centers, are performing as expected.
- Development — as the name suggests they focus on developing an application. Such teams are not usually permanent, because they exist for a specific time period (usually until a project is done).
- QAs — ensure that a product is of outstanding quality.
- Support — provide technical assistance to users. They address software and hardware issues and they help to keep operations running smoothly.
- Security — are responsible for protecting an organization’s sensitive data, they look at ways of protecting data and to stop potential threats.
In smaller companies, it’s common to see tech professionals covering a wide range of tech areas. The tech team’s structure is far simpler in these companies. In larger organizations, on the other hand, teams are usually more specialized, and more tech specialists cover more IT areas.
You now know what types of tech teams exist today and what their responsibilities are. But who exactly makes up these teams?
The roles in IT teams
There are many different roles in tech, and many of them are incredibly creative or require business expertise. Let’s go through the most common roles you’ll see in tech teams:
- Project manager — is in charge of planning and seeing a project through from the start to the end. He or she coordinates the work of different teams, oversees all the processes, and ensures a project runs on time and on a budget.
- Tech analysts — are responsible for analyzing a business’ needs, reviewing existing tech systems, and finding opportunities to optimize work processes.
- Developers — are people who write code. They develop software applications using various programming languages. While back-end developers take care of product functionality, front-end developers develop the visual elements that users see and interact with.
- QA professionals — ensure that applications work as expected and identify defects that must be fixed.
- UI/UX designers — they make sure that an application is easy to use and visually appealing for end users.
- Data Scientists — collect, validate, and analyze data to help businesses make data-driven decisions.
- Solution Architects — design tech systems and ensure that new solutions fit into the existing tech architecture.
- Security experts — protect organizations from cyber threats and attacks. They foresee possible security issues and implement measures to prevent these attacks.
- IT engineers — are responsible for installing, maintaining, and configuring an organization’s hardware, software, and networks.
Modern approaches like Agile and Scrum frameworks allow for all the various departments to effectively work together. For example, developers, Ops, and QA professionals often share overlapping responsibilities.
Conclusion
As you can see, tech teams can come in different forms and sizes. There will be different job titles from company to company but it’s not an issue. As long as the tech specialists who work in a particular company understand their company’s strategy and business goals, then their titles are irrelevant.
However, it’s important to remember that each team must have a clear range of responsibilities, as this will allow them to effectively solve the problems their business faces.
