Do you know how a team of web developers is organized?

Did you know that “teamwork” is in the TOP 5 of the most valued soft skills? And that in 2030 it will be even more relevant than today? The Future Work Skills study states that “quality leadership, teamwork skills and the ability to adapt to new technologies” will be the skills most highly valued by companies over the next decade.

Do you work well in a team and do you like it? At work, so-called “professional skills” can be trained and learned (for example, using a new program to carry out your job or applying a specific methodology), while social skills (personal attributes that help people interact effectively with others) are more difficult to learn, although not impossible. For this reason, learning to work in a team is essential in multidisciplinary and cross-functional work environments, where many departments or profiles come into play. In addition, teamwork fosters happiness in your job and therefore avoids a bad working environment Did you know that feeling happy at work not only increases personal satisfaction, self-esteem and productivity, but also fosters creativity and interest in innovation? We spend a third of every day working (imagine what this means over a lifetime), don’t you think that being happy at work and spreading that happiness to everyone around you can only help?

And that’s how the team at IT Solutions of BETWEEN Technology, where teamwork is essential and a characteristic of its DNA.

Do you want to know what a day’s work is like in BETWEEN’s IT team? For that, first you have to meet Ricardo Alonso, Project Development Manager, who leads a team of 14 IT engineers with varied profiles: junior, senior, interns, project managers, etc., who manage multiple technologies, although most of them are proficient in .NET.

Its team has been growing year after year to meet the new technical challenges that have arisen. In fact, the BETWEEN tech family continues to grow with new projects. Ricardo says that ” to be part of this family, the most important thing is attitude. Knowledge and experience add up, but attitude multiplies. “You may not have a lot of experience when you enter the workforce, but trust us, attitude is everything, and it shows in the first interview.

Ricardo explains that he feels fortunate to have a team made up of “so much human quality… It is a group that welcomes new members who join, offering them all the support possible from the beginning. Everyone does everything in their power to make them feel integrated, and we spend the first week training the person so that they can adapt to the methodologies we use.”

Let’s look at a real example.

As soon as you start a new project, which can be from a customer or from the company itself, the entire team meets to learn the details. They discuss the skills needed for the project itself and the technical requirements imposed by the client. Together they discuss the problems that may arise in this regard and, most importantly, how to carry it out or the paths that should NOT be followed for that particular project. The client makes his demands but in the end it is the whole team who decides how they are going to execute the project to reach a successful outcome. “At BETWEEN we are very fortunate because we are given the freedom to use the technology we want to use to achieve the solution requested by the client. The freedom we have to develop each project as we see fit, according to our experience and the needs of the market, is the same freedom that applies internally.” This consists of “We all have a voice and a vote. When projects or day-to-day problems arise, everyone can give their opinion and contribute to finding a solution.” explains Ricardo Alonso. And not only this. The project web development manager explains that it is very important for him to receive feedback and, for this reason, he sends out an anonymous questionnaire to find out how the rest of the team sees him and what they think about his strengths and weaknesses. This is then used to “continue to improve as a manager, with first-hand feedback”. Can you imagine being able to evaluate your boss?

At BETWEEN we use Agile and Scrum methodology. This methodology promotes a project management that encourages constant code review and adaptation. The technical team works because it facilitates teamwork, personal organization and favors the performance of web development time. For this reason, they feel more comfortable with a methodology that encourages cooperation and teamwork.

A typical day for the BETWEEN Technologies IT team.

On a practical level, the IT Solutions team meets for 15 minutes to find out how each member is doing and if they have any questions or have run into any roadblocks. Cooperation and group problem solving is vital to finding new and creative solutions. Another important point is the delivery values. Approximately every two weeks, part of the project is handed over to the customer, which ensures that both parties are involved from the start. The customer tests what has been created and makes an assessment.

Positive points of working in this way

While the client is testing the project, the team continues to develop it, but as soon as they receive feedback, there is room to go in one direction or another. A complete package is not delivered at the end, but rather partial deliveries are made, which allows changes to be made and a better final result to be achieved.

In addition, once the project has been delivered, an analysis (known as a “retrospective”) is always performed to analyze the points to be improved and those that have worked. This methodology suits BETWEEN’s IT team because it is not long term but allows them to foresee the direction to take two weeks ahead of time.

What do team members say?

Eduard Esteban, a full stack web developer (two and a half years at BETWEEN Tech) emphasizes that the “human touch” characterizes this company. He also assures that, although they work on different projects, they are aware that if there is a problem they can count on a colleague to solve it.

Alex Barro (a year and a half in BETWEEN) says that the best thing is “the camaraderie and that people get along well”.

In fact, team cohesion is not only promoted in the office but also outside. Once a month they go to the movies and have lunch together. It is vital to cultivate personal relationships between colleagues and to interact outside the work environment in order to have a cohesive team.