Career path: from trainee to IT director
Today, in the conditions of a shortage of technical specialists, companies are ready to use any means to attract and retain them. What growth prospects can an employer offer to a future employee?
In some companies, an individual development plan is developed for each IT professional over a specific period of time. It is compiled by HRs or by a manager together with an employee. It reflects all the necessary factors to improve the efficiency of the IT-service worker for the further transition to a new, higher position. Basically, such actions and methods are reflected in fairly large IT companies that are interested in the internal growth of specialists, thus providing an internal personnel reserve. Smaller companies are guided by the experience of an IT specialist and ambition, given his own desire to grow and grow.
Consider a possible career path for example the role of the programmer
')
Ways of professional development are different. This may be vertical growth, more dependent on the ambitions of the individual, or horizontal growth, involving the acquisition of new tasks, knowledge, opportunities, expansion of the functional. After all, even the transition from one project to another, the study of new technologies, the increase in the project team, for example, from 3 to 5 people, can be regarded as professional growth.
Consider the types of development programmer, but we note that the example is not a rule, but only one of the possible options, which can be many and which also depend on the company in which the specialist works.
Junior Developer
This is the very first stage from which programmers usually begin their professional path, often while still studying at an institution of higher education. Usually, beginners are made to beginners, such as higher (incomplete higher) technical education, proficiency in programming languages ​​at a general level.
At the entrance to the company, young professionals rarely can count on large projects. First you have to act as a performer, try yourself in different roles. It is unlikely that at this stage it will be possible to fully realize all of its ambitions, but it is at this moment that the necessary professional skills are developed and practiced.
Software Developer (Developer)
Requirements:
Duties:
If an employee performs well and learns quickly, if he has good relations in a team, then most likely, the next step in his career will be the position of senior or lead developer. A small clarification: the specificity of Russian companies is that these positions in them are usually divorced and the requirements for each of them are somewhat different. Often it depends on the programmer’s experience, on how long he has been working as a developer. In foreign companies, there is no such gradation.
Senior Developer / Senior Developer
Requirements:
Duties:
Also note that the range of wages for this position is quite wide. The level of remuneration can also depend on the programming experience, and on the demand for or rarity of a particular language platform / database.
An IT specialist who is fluent not only in professional development skills (programming), but also has the potential in team management, has good communication skills and knows the specifics of teamwork, can become a development team leader.
Team Leader
Requirements:
Duties:
The next step is the project manager . This position can be claimed by a person who can combine the skills of both project-technical activity and managerial work. And, despite the fact that there are options when a person with no development experience becomes a project manager, it is technical specialists who do the job better.
Along with the transition to project managers there is an opportunity and transition to architects. It is difficult to say at times what kind of growth this role belongs to, since it is certainly no less responsible for the level of competence. But at the same time it is more likely to speak about the development in terms of expertise, the development of knowledge in technology, a deeper immersion into the technological and strategic part of the project itself.
Further, the path of the project manager depends only on the area in which he wants to show himself. A project manager can move to another project, a larger one, or become a program manager (Program Manager) who manages several teams at once. There is a development option to the position of director of development , who is responsible for all development carried out in the company. There is one more way - to develop and improve yourself to the position of an IT director who already deals with IT issues in general (in particular, infrastructure), but this already depends heavily on the desire of the specialist to continue working in the field of familiar development or go beyond it.
Read more about these roles in our article here.
Vertical career growth is not the only development option. Many IT specialists are perfecting their professionalism and improving in the horizontal direction, expanding their functionality, fulfilling new tasks, becoming more versatile employees.
So, programmers can go and try their hand at architecture, detailed design or analytics. Developer's experience can serve as a good basis for a new expertise in case of transition to architects. As already mentioned, this can be seen as moving up a notch.
As for analytics, programmers do not get there too often. And this is mainly due to the fact that analysts are inherently communicators, but programmers prefer to deal with the code, to find the most correct and optimal solutions.
Zoya Bogdashkina , head of Luxoft Personnel's recruitment department, comments on:
“Another possible option for horizontal development is to connect, for example, several junior specialists to coaching and mentoring. In this case, you can consult, share the practice with young employees, for example, during their probationary period and further - and this is also a development, because you have to be responsible for the work of others.
In general, everything related to supervision or coaching may have different options:
Sometimes horizontal growth can be associated with travel to a foreign customer. Acquaintance with the company's business, language practice, introduction into a new project - all this is also directly related to the improvement of professional skills and abilities.
I would like to note such a moment - growth can also be when the specialist participates in the work of the training center as a dedicated trainer, both for internal employees of the company (if the training center operates on the basis of the enterprise) and for external customers. This allows you to take a person outside the project to the level of the IT market. ”
Thus, it is quite difficult to prescribe a clear professional development program. Today, there are many ways for IT professionals to grow. It is good when a person himself understands what exactly he wants: to improve and develop his functionality “wider”, or to grow to a top manager, imposing responsibility and responsibilities for the strategic development of the IT direction or company.
For the convenience of preparing a summary, we have developed a generalized description of most of the existing IT roles, their functionality and requirements for them.
In some companies, an individual development plan is developed for each IT professional over a specific period of time. It is compiled by HRs or by a manager together with an employee. It reflects all the necessary factors to improve the efficiency of the IT-service worker for the further transition to a new, higher position. Basically, such actions and methods are reflected in fairly large IT companies that are interested in the internal growth of specialists, thus providing an internal personnel reserve. Smaller companies are guided by the experience of an IT specialist and ambition, given his own desire to grow and grow.
Consider a possible career path for example the role of the programmer
')
Ways of professional development are different. This may be vertical growth, more dependent on the ambitions of the individual, or horizontal growth, involving the acquisition of new tasks, knowledge, opportunities, expansion of the functional. After all, even the transition from one project to another, the study of new technologies, the increase in the project team, for example, from 3 to 5 people, can be regarded as professional growth.
Consider the types of development programmer, but we note that the example is not a rule, but only one of the possible options, which can be many and which also depend on the company in which the specialist works.
VERTICAL CAREER GROWTH
Junior Developer
This is the very first stage from which programmers usually begin their professional path, often while still studying at an institution of higher education. Usually, beginners are made to beginners, such as higher (incomplete higher) technical education, proficiency in programming languages ​​at a general level.
At the entrance to the company, young professionals rarely can count on large projects. First you have to act as a performer, try yourself in different roles. It is unlikely that at this stage it will be possible to fully realize all of its ambitions, but it is at this moment that the necessary professional skills are developed and practiced.
Software Developer (Developer)
Requirements:
- Education - completed higher education (technical, mathematical, physical).
- Possession of Software Engineering Process, methods and tools for analysis and design.
- Knowledge of programming languages, understanding of web-services, server technologies, DBMS, operating systems.
Duties:
- Development (implementation) of software for the company.
- Development of new and support for existing projects.
If an employee performs well and learns quickly, if he has good relations in a team, then most likely, the next step in his career will be the position of senior or lead developer. A small clarification: the specificity of Russian companies is that these positions in them are usually divorced and the requirements for each of them are somewhat different. Often it depends on the programmer’s experience, on how long he has been working as a developer. In foreign companies, there is no such gradation.
Senior Developer / Senior Developer
Requirements:
- Education - completed higher education (technical, mathematical, physical).
- Practical experience: from 2 years (for a senior developer), from 3 years (for a leading developer) participation in commercial projects of a company in the role of developer or work experience of at least two years outside the company as a programmer.
- Possession of Software Engineering Process, methods and tools for analysis and design.
- Knowledge of programming languages, understanding of web-services, server technologies, DBMS, operating systems.
Duties:
- Execution of detailed design (creation of specifications) components based on the provided general specifications.
- Perform programming and initial testing of the assigned components.
Also note that the range of wages for this position is quite wide. The level of remuneration can also depend on the programming experience, and on the demand for or rarity of a particular language platform / database.
An IT specialist who is fluent not only in professional development skills (programming), but also has the potential in team management, has good communication skills and knows the specifics of teamwork, can become a development team leader.
Team Leader
Requirements:
- Education - completed higher (technical).
- Experience in managing a group of developers consisting of at least 2 participants for at least 3 months.
- Management skills: mastering the basics of project management; preparing and conducting technical presentations; advanced or natural communication skills; the ability to identify problems and escalate them.
- Proficiency in Software Engineering Process, methods and languages ​​of structural analysis and design.
- Knowledge of concepts and technologies for designing and developing information systems, DBMS.
Duties:
- Management of small projects or project teams as part of large projects.
- The solution of technical problems.
- Preparation and adoption of design decisions, participation in their implementation.
- The management of the part of the project team responsible for a specific list of tasks, which includes various specialists (experts, analysts, designers, programmers).
The next step is the project manager . This position can be claimed by a person who can combine the skills of both project-technical activity and managerial work. And, despite the fact that there are options when a person with no development experience becomes a project manager, it is technical specialists who do the job better.
Along with the transition to project managers there is an opportunity and transition to architects. It is difficult to say at times what kind of growth this role belongs to, since it is certainly no less responsible for the level of competence. But at the same time it is more likely to speak about the development in terms of expertise, the development of knowledge in technology, a deeper immersion into the technological and strategic part of the project itself.
Further, the path of the project manager depends only on the area in which he wants to show himself. A project manager can move to another project, a larger one, or become a program manager (Program Manager) who manages several teams at once. There is a development option to the position of director of development , who is responsible for all development carried out in the company. There is one more way - to develop and improve yourself to the position of an IT director who already deals with IT issues in general (in particular, infrastructure), but this already depends heavily on the desire of the specialist to continue working in the field of familiar development or go beyond it.
Read more about these roles in our article here.
HORIZONTAL CAREER GROWTH
Vertical career growth is not the only development option. Many IT specialists are perfecting their professionalism and improving in the horizontal direction, expanding their functionality, fulfilling new tasks, becoming more versatile employees.
So, programmers can go and try their hand at architecture, detailed design or analytics. Developer's experience can serve as a good basis for a new expertise in case of transition to architects. As already mentioned, this can be seen as moving up a notch.
As for analytics, programmers do not get there too often. And this is mainly due to the fact that analysts are inherently communicators, but programmers prefer to deal with the code, to find the most correct and optimal solutions.
Zoya Bogdashkina , head of Luxoft Personnel's recruitment department, comments on:“Another possible option for horizontal development is to connect, for example, several junior specialists to coaching and mentoring. In this case, you can consult, share the practice with young employees, for example, during their probationary period and further - and this is also a development, because you have to be responsible for the work of others.
In general, everything related to supervision or coaching may have different options:
- Managing (or supervising) a small group of people (2-3 people) within a separate project, when distributing duties and tasks, solving emerging problems, an IT specialist can combine project activities with managerial activities. Or, in relation to one project, this specialist may be a developer, and to another - a project team manager.
- Supervising a geographically distributed team. This mainly refers to the development team manager. In this case, he gets experience in international work, development and improvement of a foreign language. In the arsenal of his tasks, new ones appear, such as the introduction of new specialists into the project, the responsibility for the whole project. This is a great opportunity for those who have previously developed within their location, and now have the opportunity to work with distributed foreign teams from the same customer, while in the same position.
Sometimes horizontal growth can be associated with travel to a foreign customer. Acquaintance with the company's business, language practice, introduction into a new project - all this is also directly related to the improvement of professional skills and abilities.
I would like to note such a moment - growth can also be when the specialist participates in the work of the training center as a dedicated trainer, both for internal employees of the company (if the training center operates on the basis of the enterprise) and for external customers. This allows you to take a person outside the project to the level of the IT market. ”
Thus, it is quite difficult to prescribe a clear professional development program. Today, there are many ways for IT professionals to grow. It is good when a person himself understands what exactly he wants: to improve and develop his functionality “wider”, or to grow to a top manager, imposing responsibility and responsibilities for the strategic development of the IT direction or company.
For the convenience of preparing a summary, we have developed a generalized description of most of the existing IT roles, their functionality and requirements for them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/148273/
All Articles