If you take a look at a home construction project, you will figure out that the architect and the construction worker are playing two different roles. That difference can be applied to the software development industry as well. In other words, the job role of a person who is into software engineering consulting is different from the job role of an individual who is writing the code and developing the software.
What is software consulting?
The primary objective of a software consultant is to take a look at technology from the viewpoint of a business. They are in a positon to provide consultancy services on the best practices and latest technology trends. They are mainly working with the clients. As a result, they provide an excellent assistance for the clients to make better business decisions.
During software consulting, new services are being added to the system and the existing services are removed. This happens according to the target audience, market and the goal of the client. Moreover, the consultants offer code re-factoring and code reviews as well.
It is the job of a software consultant to take a look at software from different viewpoints. They include maintainability, scalability, security, performance and ease of usage. Hence, a better quality product will be offered to the client at the end of the day. As they take a look at software from a broad viewpoint, the implementation strategy is put on track from the initial phase.
The software engineering consulting services take a look at software from the long term use as well. Hence, they provide an excellent assistance to select DB schema and DBMS accordingly.
The role of a software consultant becomes prominent during the quality assurance or testing process as well. In here, the consultant would double check and verifies that the code has been written and functionalities have been implemented according to the requirements of the client. Moreover, the consultant provides an excellent assistance to the testers with test case preparation as well. Hence, the testers will be able to get a clear understanding about the business requirements as well.
It is possible for a software engineering consultant to conduct client side or server side latency. In addition, the load measurements can be taken effectively through stimulation of traffic. Moreover, they can provide an excellent assistance to optimize the code as well. This is done by improving the DB schema, data structures and algorithms.
When the software system starts shaping up, the IT consultant will be able to provide assistance to the server farm design. Moreover, an excellent assistance is being provided to identify the architecture needed for launching the application. Moreover, the guidance given by the consultant can be followed when selecting the most appropriate environment needed for the web platforms that are implemented on the cloud. On the other hand, the IT consultants will be able to use the domain knowledge and expertise that they have in order to maintain app on the cloud and setup the production machine as well.
Assistance of the software consultant can be obtained by the project manager for his work as well. In other words, the project manager can get the assistance of the consultant and manage the resources, timelines and project schedule accordingly.
Last but not least, the IT consultant is in a position to conduct meetings along with clients. In addition, product demos, and bug collection is also taken place with the assistance offered by the software consultant.
What is software developing?
The role of a software developer is to take the pre-approved technical specifications into consideration and start the development activities. In other words, the software developer will need to move forward with the code and get things to work.
Usually, a software developer is not involved with creating the market performance reports. They are mainly concerned about implementing the features, which are requested by the client. When doing that, the software developer will need to adhere to the given time frame as well. Initial functional code will be written by the developer and the development activities are being carried forward.
The primary goal that a software developer has is to write down functional code. In addition, the software developer needs to focus on performance and security. Otherwise, the software would be buggy and the client will not accept it. When such changes are needed at the end of the project, major re-hauls and revamps are needed. Since this cannot be accommodated, the developers need to stay focused from the moment that they start working on the project.
The software developer would also go ahead and create a schema needed for a given feature at a time. In addition, the same functionality is being modified according to the comments of the client. Once the developments are done, the software developer will need to do developer testing. All identified bugs will be solved, before passing them down to quality assurance team.
Once requested, the software engineer will go ahead and move the app into the cloud as well. This is done under the guidance of the consultant. Based on the feedback given by the consultant, the software developer will go ahead with implementing appropriate functionality as well. This provides an excellent assistance for the software engineer to stay focused.
Conclusion
As you can see, the software consultancy and software developing can be considered as two different ends, which can be found in the software development process. The role played by both these parties is essential when trying to get the things done. They should work collaboratively with each other as well. Then it would be possible to deliver the expectations of the client in a timely manner. With that, the software development project can be ended up in a successful note.
