How to choose the right mobile app development team structure

Table of contents:

• Why is it important to have the right development team structure
• Key roles in the mobile app development team structure
• Stages of a mobile app development team
• Types of mobile app development teams

Why is it important to have the right development team structure?

People are the key to your product's success. Even though the absence of some professionals appears to be normal during the development process, it may have an impact at the end of the day.

A good grasp of the mobile app development team structure can assist you in effectively building your project and finding market success. This is true regardless of whether you are outsourcing or developing your app in-house.

Modern app development is far more complicated than the old "man in a garage" style of the past. Depending on the size of the app, dozens of people may be required to make it a reality and a success.

For instance, if you recruit a high-end designer but your team lacks UX experience, you'll wind up with a fantastic app with amazing visual effects but no one will be able to grasp it, because they will be puzzled or disoriented within it. Without such professionals on the team, you will have finely developed apps with second-to-none capabilities of fulfilling the demands of consumers.

What type works at appssemble?

Each workgroup is a complex and dynamic microorganism with its own set of employees and regulations.

appssemble’s company goal for mobile app development team members is to have diverse team members who fully reflect our expertise. We have both universal troops and profound specialists on staff that are dedicated and thorough while also being adaptable. We've managed to establish quick and clear communication inside the organization over time, and we're happy to collaborate on any project, no matter how big or small.

Key roles in the mobile app development team structure

As I previously stated, a mobile app development team is a living creature that works on numerous tasks through collaborative efforts. What counts most are the talents and abilities of each member of your project's crew. It is now critical that you understand the duties and responsibilities of each member of your application development team. The traditional plan is as follows:

• Project manager / Product manager
• UI/UX designers
• iOS/Android developers
• Backend developers
• QA engineers

Project manager / Product manager

When you bring your app concept to a mobile app development business, you'll be assigned a project manager who will act as your assistant and link with developers. A project manager is in charge of a project from inception to end, according to the agreed-upon budget, timeline, and quality. A project manager is primarily concerned with the performance of the app development process, deadline adherence, and quality standards based on the product manager's vision

A product manager is frequently used interchangeably with the project manager. However, while each of these professionals are managers, they do separate duties and have different obligations. The distinction is in what they are managing - a project versus a product. A project is defined by a precise plan of activities and start and finish dates. A product must provide continual value to users and has no temporal constraints.

Project manager’s responsibilities:

• Assigning tasks to the development team, establishing sprint periods, and prioritizing tasks;
• Calculating your project's cost and remaining inside your budget;
• Increasing communication between you, the client, and the developers;
• Making modifications to the app development strategy;
• Managing issues and risks;
• Maintaining quality, meeting deadlines, and keeping expenses under control.

Product manager’s responsibilities:

• Analyzes the market, specify the advantages, values, and essential features of your app, and investigate your target audience;
• Identify consumers' critical issues and provide best answers;
• Create an app development business strategy;
• Prioritizes useful app features;
• Extracts a distinct value proposition and assists you in developing a strong call to action.

UI/UX designers

Before anything else, you should be aware that User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are distinct yet related concepts. To clarify, UX refers to how a user interacts with a product, whereas UI refers to the aesthetic aspect of the product. The primary responsibility of the UI/UX designer is to provide a satisfactory user experience by designing an app that is simple, intuitive, intriguing, and engaging.

Designer’s responsibilities:

• Make a user personas;
• Consider the user flow and create app wireframes;
• Make app prototypes;
• Create a user-friendly app UI;
• Changes should be made in response to user input and testing data;
• Working knowledge of UI/UX design tools such as Figma, InVision, and Sketch;
• Knowledge of UX research, wireframing, UI prototyping, UX authoring, and interaction design is required;
• Coding knowledge can be required in order to communicate effectively with programmers;

iOS/Android developers

The iOS and Android operating systems have different development languages and requirements. That is why each platform requires its own set of developers. Your intended audience and budget will determine whether you should design your app for one or both platforms. Android and iOS developers, in general, are in charge of the technical aspects of mobile app development.

Developers' responsibilities:

• Creating high-quality code from drawings, mockups, and wireframes;
• Developing and sustaining reusable, dependable, and high-performance code;
• Providing the highest quality, performance, and responsiveness in mobile apps;
• Addressing app flaws and resolving issues.

Required skills for iOS developers:

• Mastery of Objective-C and Swift for the creation of native apps;
• Understanding of the Xcode IDE – the primary development environment for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS apps — is required;
• Understanding of how to create apps for the most recent iterations of iOS.

Required skills for Android developers:

• Knowledge of the Kotlin and Java programming languages is required;
• Proven expertise with Android Studio, the Android app development environment;
• Capability to create an app that works with a wide range of Android versions, devices, and screen sizes;

Backend developers

When the backend developer comes into action with its advanced logic and algorithms, all the magic happens beneath one roof. The backend developer is in charge of keeping a server up and running, as well as cloud storage and operational logic.

Backend developers’ responsibilities:

• Data storage, security, and presentation to the appropriate user;
• Managing payment systems that can access and securely store data in order for users to make payments in-app;
• Application programming interfaces (APIs) are used to communicate between the server and devices;
• Creating device-specific operating logic;
• Framework development and app architecture;
• Using databases, integrated development environments (IDEs), and collaborative tools;
• They should have hands-on expertise with a programming language such as Java,.Net, Python, PHP, or Ruby is required;

QA engineers

A quality assurance (QA) engineer's major responsibility is to monitor every stage of mobile app development to ensure that the design and software satisfy all requirements, uncover app faults and bugs on time, and assist you to reach project release dates and stay under budget.

QA responsibilities:

• Conduct both automated and manual testing;
• Maintain a record of test progress and test cases;
• Throughout testing, keep track of bugs;
• Identify probable issues that users may encounter;
• Create stringent testing guidelines to determine app quality and release readiness;
• Strong knowledge of QA testing technologies such as TestComplete, Robotium, and Selenium;
• Understanding of feature and bug tracking systems such as Jira, Trello, etc..

Stages of a mobile app development team

The app development process involves more than just coding and designing. Turning an app concept into a real app involves a lot of expertise, effort, and money obviously, as well as tech support throughout the app's existence.

To make it easier to identify the software development team members who participate in each step, we've separated the app development process into five major stages.

Discovery

At this stage, you must describe the app's goals, values, and features, assess competitors, determine the target audience, and create mockups to envision your app. You must produce a low-fidelity app prototype at the conclusion of the discovery cycle to ensure that you and your development team are on the same page.

You should include a project manager as the essential person in controlling the whole app development process throughout the discovery stage. You may also enlist the assistance of a product manager to delve further into your target consumers' ideas, requirements, expectations, and motivations for using your app and making in-app purchases. You should also include a UI/UX designer in the brainstorming phase, create a business idea, and turn the outcomes of the discovery stage into visual mockups of the initial app prototype.

Idea validation

At this point, you should concentrate on establishing your active and paying customers as well as validating the relevancy of your app by inviting a group of individuals to test your app prototype. Based on beta tester comments, you may begin to create a medium-fidelity app prototype that depicts your app's UX design and flow.

When you begin to validate the app idea, you will need to pitch in all of the team members, including a project manager, a product manager, and a UI/UX designer, as well as a QA engineer for testing, an iOS developer, an Android developer, and a backend developer to create a medium-fidelity app prototype.

UI/UX strategy

This is the stage at which you begin to develop a user interface in depth. You should design a high-fidelity app prototype that is interactive so that your testers can test the app's navigation and provide input on its usability.

When it comes to validating the app idea, you'll need to bring in all of the team members, including a project manager, a product manager, and a UI/UX designer, as well as a QA engineer for testing, an iOS developer, an Android developer, and a backend developer to create a medium-fidelity app prototype.

Design and development

At this point, your app development team begins coding and developing a minimal viable product (MVP), which is a feature-oriented product with an appealing design and a user-friendly interface but is not yet a fully-fledged mobile app.

The UI/UX designer, iOS and Android developers along with backend developers bear the majority of the load during the design and development stage. They report to the project manager and interact with the product manager on a regular basis.

Testing and improving

This step presumes to examine the user experience in order to resolve any crashes or issues and make any changes necessary to make your software the best it can be. You may add new app features on a regular basis and assess their usefulness. This will result in the creation of a fully working and successful app.

If your objective is to get your app to market as soon as possible and you have a large enough budget, you may engage more IT expertise to help you construct your app faster. If you're starting on a tight budget, you may minimize your app's features, begin implementing your app on a single platform or engage only a few professionals.

If you are having trouble evaluating your app development expenses and determining the ideal development team size, you can contact us for a free consultation.

Types of a mobile app development team

Now that you understand the mobile development team structure, the distribution of app development team duties and responsibilities, and the right app development team size for your project, it's time to work out the best strategy to acquire mobile application development expertise for your project. We've identified five approaches for hiring experts to create your app:

1. In-house developers

They are professionals that work solely on your project and are based in your workplace. You may handle the app development process and hire team members on your own if you have an in-house development team.

2. Freelancers

They are beneficial when you need to engage specialized individuals with a high degree of competence to complete one-time jobs. You may contact freelancers directly, and they would most likely assist you in cutting costs. You may find freelancers by looking through their portfolios on freelance platforms.

3. A dedicated team

They are a group of remote IT professionals that you may employ from a third-party service provider. This team will include designers, developers, and QA engineers who will report to a project manager. While retaining employees of the third-party service provider, they will work on your project and interact with your in-house developers.

4. Outstaffing

This means that a third-party development business will give you one or more professionals to supplement your team and provide vital skills in order to construct an app. Outstaffing specialists are third-party personnel that work as part of your development team and do tasks that you give to them.

5. Outsourcing

This is ideal for delegating your whole project implementation from start to finish. Outsourcing is totally entrusting your app's execution to a third-party development business and abdicating responsibility for the end outcome.

There you have it, the most important tips on how to create a successful mobile app development team. By now you should have a clear vision of each development team’s role and responsibilities. Employing a firm that already has a team of developers in place is typically the most efficient technique of an app development company.

If you’re looking for more information, directions for your development team structure or looking to hire the best iOS or Android app development team, then you should meet our professionals and give them an insight into your project’s idea. Appssemble always keeps up with clients’ requirements and builds something professionally unique by understanding the culture of their business.