The FinTech sector, despite economic and regulatory challenges, is constantly growing in market value. Newly emerging financial technology companies and startups are introducing new, progressive solutions to the financial industry, mainly for this reason.
Since you are here, you probably have your own idea for a business, and all you need is not only advanced technology, but above all, a talented development team!
In this article, we will show you how to build the right team who maximize productivity of your project and make your FinTech product successful and high quality!
Table of Contents:
1. What is the FinTech Software Development Team and why you need it?
2. What roles and responsibilities must be met in the successful software development team?
3. Necessary steps to take when building and managing a team of developers.
4. Key Skills for the Product Development Team.
What is the FinTech Software Development Team and why you need it?
The FinTech Software Development Team consists of suitably selected people with an experienced range of skills who will be able to participate in the construction of a technical product in order to achieve satisfactory results.
All people in the team, thanks to their expertise, contribute to the achievement of the set goal and feel responsible for the fulfillment of their duties.
Every single team member has a clearly defined role and responsibilities that contribute to the creation of a FinTech Product.
The successful development team may be divided into 3 types:
-
Technology team (Specialists) - the technology team consists of specialists who are focused on a specified tech stack, e.g. backend development or frontend development.
-
The Product team - (Generalists) -it is strictly focused on product success. A team of programmers is mainly focused on the success of the product at a high level, and not only on achieving technical success in one area. Typically, product teams consist of experienced engineers who are able to work on a full stack.
-
Matrix team - some project situations require a combination of the two above team structures. In such cases, you may choose to combine both of the above structures, resulting in a matrix assembly.
Based on the specification of your idea, you have to chose what kind of FinTech software development team you need to build.
What roles and responsibilities must be met in the successful software development team?
An effective software development team consists of various experienced team members.
#Product Owner
The Product Owner is responsible mainly for managing and optimizing the product backlog in order to maximize the product's value, and for defining and prioritizing user requirements. This role is the customer's primary point of contact for determining product requirements for the development team.
#Scrum Master or Project Manager
The Scrum Master ensures that the project team successfully applies Scrum principles by training the team, providing support to team members, and resolving any issues that arise.
The Scrum Master oversees resolving issues that prevent team members from working, fostering good communication and teamwork within the team, and facilitating meetings.
When it comes to Project Manager, it is a specialist who forms a team to ensure that the defined project scopes and goals are completed on time, within budget, and that their goals are met.
Their tasks include conducting meetings, creating various types of schedules, managing budgets, as well as managing risk.
The main difference between Scrum Masters and project managers is that Scrum Masters can only work on Scrum-based projects, while Project Managers can work on any type of software project (Agile or Waterfall).
#IT Business Analyst
The IT Business Analyst is responsible for evaluating IT systems and making recommendations on how they can better meet business needs. The scope of duties performed by this individual includes fine-tuning the roles and responsibilities of IT specialists in the team, developing implementation requirements and working with stakeholders to develop IT plans.
#Technical Lead
The technical Lead mainly controls the technical team. He/She usually works closely with software development teams, and also ensures the smooth course of all technical activities, monitors and evaluates the progress of employees.
#Developers and Software Engineers
Developers and Software Engineers deal with designing and coding software daily in their work. They have critical thinking skills as well as strong problem-solving abilities, and their responsibilities include creating clean and efficient code based on specifications, fixing and improving existing product software.
#UI/ UX Designer
UX/UI Designers are involved in the design process from start to finish. User experience designers work on the behavior of the software, while UI designers are responsible for the graphic design or layout of the product.
#Quality Assurance Tester
A tester is to test the functionality and usability of new or existing software before launching it to ensure that it is bug-free. The tester provides feedback to the developers on what needs to be improved to create the highest quality programs that meet customer expectations.
Necessary steps to take when building and managing a team of developers to be successful?
To build a successful team of developers, you should consider your active participation in all stages of creating a fintech project, starting with:
#Be present during the hiring process
If you actively participate in the recruitment and hiring process, together with the Hiring Manager, you can be sure that the person who will take the position will also be appropriately suited to the role.
#Hire people for the project who are passionate and enthusiastic
People who feel comfortable doing their job and who feel they are passionate about the subject easily achieve better results.
#Pay attention to technical skills and don't forget about soft skills
A well-developed project requires more than just technical skill and programming, the key is a smooth, communicative and respectful team. Emotional intelligence helps improve team communication, which is crucial for productivity and ultimate success.
#Establish roles and objectives
Prevent misunderstandings caused by a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities. Every agile project should begin with a clear and comprehensive definition of roles and goals. Keep in mind the whole team structure.
#Support collaboration between the engineering team and the design team
Set clear priorities for the team, where empathy and effective communication are just as important as delivering quality work. Remember about team building - it can be done by some bonding events.
#Take care of the right tools and a good working environment
Remember to equip team members with the right tools for work and create a working environment that will help the team in pursuit of the goal. If you want to build an effective FinTech software development team, you need to provide them with everything they need to do their job well.
Take care of the real work-life-balance and mental health of the team so as not to lead them to professional burnout and high stress.
#Be proactive
Communication works both ways. It is important that you actively listen to your team and keep up to date with developments and the current state of the developing project.
#Provide regular feedback to the development team
Conduct regular evaluations with team members, provide them with current information, set next milestones, tasks or goals. In addition, when you give positive feedback to your team members, they become more confident in their work.
Creating a transparent feedback model with the team puts everyone on an equal footing to strive for better results.
Key Skills for the Product Development Team
Technical Skills
During building FinTech app, the development team of your choice should have various technical skills because it is a key point to creating a successful and final product. These include:
-
Frontend and Backend skills - frontend developers work on the web application's layout and overall process flow. They frequently use CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. When it comes to creating dynamic websites, JavaScript web frameworks are widely used nowadays. Backend developers, in turn, should know modern programming languages to build fintech products using the latest tools and frameworks.
-
ETL & Database - Fintech products are notorious for being data-intensive. ETL job management and database management are critical components of FinTech services. Knowledge of ETL (Extract - Transform - Load) helps in designing and developing data storage solutions that best meet business requirements.
-
API development and integration - due to this ability, it is possible to communicate between different systems.
-
DevSecOps - this term stands for development, security and operations in turn, the ability to use this strategy keeps security in the first place when coding. This is critical for products based on financial technology, that necessitate vigilant cybersecurity practices.
-
Quality Assurance - thanks to the possibility of manual or automatic tests, the product will not have errors, which will translate into better use.
Soft Skills
It is also necessary for the project team to have soft skills because they improve work efficiency and the final result. Here are a few of them:
-
Rigorous planning - the ability to develop the most viable and appropriate product development plan and to select the appropriate technology stack for the project specification is crucial because creating a financial technology product is a very complex process.
-
Communication skills - they are essential for the proper execution of the product development plan. Using communication apps such as Slack, Microsoft Teams or Zoom improve team communication.
Summary
Financial technology product development is a very complex process that requires a high level of trust and expertise for the chosen software engineering team.
Keeping in mind the market and constantly changing regulations and requirements for FinTech software and product development, building the right team of programmers has never been more important.
If you have any project in mind, don't hesitate and contact us directly or estimate your project with us within 48h! We are a FinTech software development company, so if you would like to see, what we have been working on so far and how the development process conducted by us looks like, take a closer look at our Case Study section on Railwaymen's website.
