The Inside Scoop on an Application Developer
Directly from an IT Professional

I recently had the opportunity to interview an IT Professional to learn and discuss more of the responsibilities, challenges and upcoming changes in the technology industry (that professional happened to be my very own older brother) The purpose of this interview is to gage an understanding from the perspective of someone in that said industry. I never understood in great detail what he did as an application developer until now. Below are my findings.
Name: Kyle Braham
Age: 25

Education: Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science from the University of Bonaventure

Current Employer: State University of New York at Buffalo-Central IT department
Job Description: Application Developer (Junior)
Kyle summarized his main duties as to support, create, and maintain software for the university applications. Furthermore, he is in charge of integrating vendor’s software with the university’s software applications. Required skills for this type of job include but are not limited to: technical skills, programming skills, coding skills, problem solving, communication skills, and being able to work in a team.

Kyle described that his favorite role is being able to create software. “I like to build things because it is fun to utilize new software and programs.” Using new technology is exciting and interesting and that is his favorite part. Continuous learning is something that occurs frequently in this field. Technology is always changing and developers need to stay on top of such changes.
This also ties into why Kyle went into the Technology industry. He says that ever since he was little he had an interest in technology. He always had the latest computer and Ipods. Also, he has always had fun when it came to solving problems which is very common in this industry. Furthermore, he took a intro programming class in high school which led him to choose computer science as a major in college.
When asked if there are enough people entering this field, Kyle described how there are not. “Too few people are going for computer science degrees because they think it contains a lot of math and science- which it does, but I think people tend to stay away from majors with heavy amounts of math and science classes”. Kyle explained how the major can be viewed as complex and people are not willing to go through that in their education, so they choose other majors instead. He also illustrated that it’s important that more people choose this major in the future so that there are more people who can understand how technology and IT works. Most if not all jobs rely somehow on technology , and that means someone needs to be in charge of that technology. There is and will continue to be a demand for developers until more people choose this career path.
Negative Aspects of the job: Sitting at a desk for most of the day, constantly focusing on a computer screen can hurt ones eyes, and although this does not pertain specifically to Kyle’s job, some IT jobs can include little to no face-to-face interaction.
Some reasons people leave: People leave their jobs due to the type of company they work for, pay changes, and the type of role they play in the company. People who leave the industry probably do so because they are bored or money driven. Kyle says that a lot of people in this field switch to business related industries because of the money. Kyle explained that in order to love your job it can’t be about the moeny, it should be about loving what you are doing each and everyday.
Typical Path of an Application Developer:

A Junior Developer is someone usually right out of college with 0–3 years experience.
A Senior Developer has 4+ years experience
A Lead Developer has 7–10 years experience
According to Kyle emerging technology that will transform his job in the future will be continuous integration, development operations, automation, containerization, artificial intelligence and bots.
Below is a video that summarizes some of these emerging technologies from 2016.
Finally, the purpose of this interview was to gage an understanding of how business, organizational, and technical strategies align in corporations. Kyle discusses how through the mix of organization and agile development there is opportunity for technical advancements and increases in efficiency. Once this is available businesses will have more opportunities for growth. All three aspects are intertwined especially the more technologically advanced we become.
Personally, I think people are unaware of the importance of application developers and tend to stereotype computer science as IT “fix it” guys. Developers are crucial for the future and for a corporation’s success. The more advanced of a society we become the more crucial this career becomes. I would like to thank Kyle for allowing me to interview and write this discussion on him. It was a great insight to the world of a developer.
