Lead programmer

A lead software engineer's exact responsibilities vary from company to company, but in general he or she is responsible for overseeing the work, in a technical sense, of a team of software engineers working on a project, ensuring work meets the technical requirements, such as coding conventions, set by the software architect or principal engineer responsible for the underlying architecture.[9][10] A lead software engineer's duties are often "hands on", meaning they typically write software code on a daily basis, assisting their team to meet deadlines and improve the quality of the codebase. They act as a mentor for new or lower-level software developers or programmers, as well as for all the members on the development team, primarily through processes such as pair programming, conducting of code reviews, promoting good development principles, such as test-driven development, and taking the lead in correcting code defects.[11][12]

Although the responsibilities are primarily technical, lead software engineers also generally serve as an interface between the programmers and management, have ownership of their team's development plans and have supervisorial responsibilities in delegating work.[13] They ensure that sections of software projects come in on time and under budget, and assisting technically with hiring and reviewing performance of staff. Lead engineers also serve as technical advisers to management and provide programming perspective on requirements. Typically a lead engineer will oversee a development team of between two and ten programmers.[14][15][16]

A lead software engineer reports to a principal software engineer (who manages a number of teams) or chapter lead[17] (responsible for technical principles to which a number of teams must work). Technical direction may be provided by a software architect. Where teams follow the Waterfall, Extreme Programming, or Kanban approaches, the lead software engineer is referred to as an engineering manager, or a software development manager, and collaborates directly with a peer, the product owner, who gathers the customer requirements that the end product must meet. In a true Agile approach, the lead engineer collaborates with a separate position of scrum master, who acts as an intermediary seeking a compromise between business demand (product owner) and team capacity and skillset (lead engineer), e.g. which story tickets from the product backlog will be passed into the next Agile sprint.

In the nascent field of software engineering, many lead software engineers are self-taught, though formal qualifications are in increasing demand for job applications. Approximately 45% hold formal mathematics-based computer science or software engineering Bachelor's degrees, with 32% holding a Master's. [18] [19] Many complete short technical courses provided by the creators of software languages and frameworks.[20] Some lead engineers hold Chartered Engineer status from organisations such as Engineers Australia and the British Computer Society,[21] for which typically, one must have completed a Master's degree. They learn management responsibilities either on the job or through short courses.[22]