What does a digital transformation developer do?

The role of front-end developer at PITSS is both exciting and unique because we assist in many phases of application modernization and digital transformation front end projects, not just the development phase.

One of the first tasks a front-end developer accomplishes is meeting with the sales team to help build a relationship with clients. At PITSS, we do this by showing examples of their legacy application. We show what an applications would look like if we gave it a complete UI overhaul. We’re always working to bring legacy applications up to modern-day design standards.

After we’ve built a relationship with the client, we begin the design phase of the transformation. During the design phase, our front-end developers meet with the client to better understand how their application is used and find areas where we can enhance the UI and UX during the development phase.

When we have a firm understanding of how users work with the application, we begin to create wireframes for a redesign. After the initial wireframes are approved, we move on to creating fully detailed mock ups that will closely resemble the finished product.

To help demonstrate navigation and application flow, our front-end developers utilize workflow tools to create interactive prototypes for the client to try out.

After the designs are finalized and fully approved, we move on to the next step of digital transformation: the development phase. During the development phase, we utilize many of the assets created during the design phase as a blueprint for how the pages will look and behave.

We use these assets to start building out the front end of the application with the client’s choice of desired technology such as Angular, Spring, React, etc. Throughout this process we also meet with the back-end development team to hook in the web services to our front end so we can start displaying live data.

Once the web service is hooked up and we have live data, we ensure the data is being displayed according to the mock ups and finish building out the remainder of the pages while working with the back-end development team.

Then we move into the support phase to assist the client with any minor issues as the PITSS digital transformation project team moves the finished application through to production.

In addition to the usual tasks of a front-end developer, PITSS developers also set aside time to research major and minor release updates to frameworks. Web frameworks change at a very rapid pace and can have minor release changes monthly and major release changes every six months.

As a team, we make it a priority to stay current and informed so that our front-end developers are prepared for any new digital transformation project that comes our way.