12 KiB
12 KiB
Standardized Team Layout
Enterprise-grade team structure for software development lifecycle
Version: 1.0 Applies To: All projects, squads, and agent teams
Overview
This document defines the standardized team structure across 5 phases of the software development lifecycle. Each team has specific responsibilities, required roles, and integration points.
Team Size Requirements
All teams MUST have between 4 and 6 members (inclusive).
- Minimum: 4 members (ensures adequate coverage of all critical roles)
- Maximum: 6 members (prevents team bloat and communication overhead)
Teams with fewer than 4 members are understaffed and cannot effectively cover all required responsibilities. Teams with more than 6 members suffer from coordination overhead and should be split into sub-teams.
This rule applies to:
- Human teams
- AI agent teams
- Mixed human-agent teams
Phase 1: Strategy, Governance & Planning
Team 1: Business & Product Strategy (The "Why")
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Business Relationship Manager (BRM) | Connects IT to C-suite | Strategic alignment docs, executive briefings |
| Lead Product Manager | Owns long-term roadmap | Product roadmap, OKRs, feature prioritization |
| Business Systems Analyst (BSA) | Translates business to technical | Requirements specs, user stories, acceptance criteria |
| Financial Controller (FinOps) | Approves budget and cloud spend | Budget forecasts, cost projections, spend reports |
Exit Criteria:
- Business case approved
- Budget allocated
- Roadmap defined
- Success metrics established
Team 2: Enterprise Architecture (The "Standards")
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Chief Architect | Sets 5-year tech vision | Architecture vision, tech radar, strategic plans |
| Domain Architect | Specialized stack expertise | Domain-specific patterns, best practices guides |
| Solution Architect | Maps projects to standards | Solution designs, architecture decision records (ADRs) |
| Standards Lead | Manages Approved Tech List | Technology standards, evaluation criteria, approved list |
Exit Criteria:
- Architecture approved
- Technology choices validated
- Standards compliance verified
Team 3: GRC (Governance, Risk, & Compliance)
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Compliance Officer | SOX/HIPAA/GDPR adherence | Compliance checklists, audit reports |
| Internal Auditor | Pre-production mock audits | Audit findings, remediation plans |
| Privacy Engineer | Data masking and PII | Privacy impact assessments, data flow diagrams |
| Policy Manager | Maintains SOPs | Standard operating procedures, policy updates |
Exit Criteria:
- Compliance review passed
- Risk assessment complete
- Privacy requirements met
- Policies acknowledged
Phase 2: Platform & Foundation
Team 4: Infrastructure & Cloud Ops
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud Architect | VPC and network design | Network diagrams, security groups, routing tables |
| IaC Engineer | Provisions the "metal" | Terraform modules, Ansible playbooks, infrastructure code |
| Network Security Engineer | Firewalls, VPNs, Direct Connect | Security rules, network policies, access controls |
| Storage Engineer | S3/SAN management | Storage policies, backup strategies, archival rules |
Exit Criteria:
- Infrastructure provisioned
- Network connectivity verified
- Security rules applied
- Monitoring enabled
Team 5: Platform Engineering (The "Internal Tools")
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Product Manager | Developer experience as product | Platform roadmap, DX metrics, adoption reports |
| CI/CD Architect | Golden pipelines | Pipeline templates, build configs, deployment strategies |
| Kubernetes Administrator | Cluster management | Cluster configs, resource quotas, ingress rules |
| Developer Advocate | Dev squad adoption | Onboarding guides, training materials, feedback loops |
Exit Criteria:
- Platform services ready
- CI/CD pipelines functional
- Developer onboarding complete
Team 6: Data Governance & Analytics
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Data Architect | Enterprise data model | Data models, schema designs, lineage documentation |
| DBA | Production database performance | Query optimization, index tuning, backup verification |
| Data Privacy Officer (DPO) | Retention and deletion rules | Data retention policies, deletion workflows |
| ETL Developer | Data flow management | ETL pipelines, data quality checks, transformation logic |
Exit Criteria:
- Data models defined
- Pipelines operational
- Privacy controls implemented
Phase 3: The Build Squads
Team 7: Core Feature Squad (The "Devs")
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Technical Lead | Final word on implementation | Code reviews, architecture decisions, technical guidance |
| Senior Backend Engineer | Logic, APIs, microservices | Backend services, API endpoints, business logic |
| Senior Frontend Engineer | Design system, state management | UI components, frontend architecture, state logic |
| Accessibility (A11y) Expert | WCAG compliance | A11y audits, remediation plans, testing reports |
| Technical Writer | Internal/external docs | API docs, user guides, runbooks |
Exit Criteria:
- Features implemented
- Code reviewed and approved
- Documentation complete
- A11y requirements met
Team 8: Middleware & Integration
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| API Product Manager | API lifecycle and versioning | API specs, versioning strategy, deprecation plans |
| Integration Engineer | SAP/Oracle/Mainframe connections | Integration specs, data mappings, error handling |
| Messaging Engineer | Kafka/RabbitMQ management | Topic design, message schemas, consumer groups |
| IAM Specialist | Okta/AD integration | Auth flows, permission models, access policies |
Exit Criteria:
- APIs documented and tested
- Integrations verified
- Auth flows functional
Phase 4: Validation & Hardening
Team 9: Cybersecurity (AppSec)
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Security Architect | Threat model review | Threat models, security architecture, risk assessments |
| Vulnerability Researcher | SAST/DAST/SCA scanners | Scan reports, vulnerability triage, fix verification |
| Penetration Tester | Manual security testing | Pen test reports, exploit verification, remediation |
| DevSecOps Engineer | Security in CI/CD | Security gates, pipeline integration, compliance checks |
Exit Criteria:
- Security review passed
- Vulnerabilities remediated or accepted
- Pen testing complete
- Security gates passing
Team 10: Quality Engineering (SDET)
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| QA Architect | Global testing strategy | Test strategy, test plans, coverage reports |
| SDET | Automated test code | Test automation, framework maintenance, CI integration |
| Performance/Load Engineer | Scale testing | Load test scripts, performance baselines, capacity reports |
| Manual QA / UAT Coordinator | User acceptance testing | Test cases, UAT coordination, sign-off reports |
Exit Criteria:
- Test coverage requirements met
- Performance benchmarks achieved
- UAT sign-off obtained
Phase 5: Delivery & Sustainment
Team 11: Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| SRE Lead | Error budget and uptime SLA | SLOs, error budgets, reliability reports |
| Observability Engineer | Monitoring and logging | Dashboards, alerts, log aggregation, traces |
| Chaos Engineer | Resiliency testing | Chaos experiments, failure scenarios, recovery tests |
| Incident Manager | War room leadership | Incident response, post-mortems, runbook updates |
Exit Criteria:
- Monitoring in place
- Alerts configured
- Runbooks complete
- Error budget healthy
Team 12: IT Operations & Support (NOC)
| Role | Responsibility | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| NOC Analyst | 24/7 monitoring | Monitoring dashboards, alert triage, incident tickets |
| Change Manager | Deployment approval | Change requests, deployment windows, CAB approval |
| Release Manager | Go/No-Go coordination | Release plans, rollback procedures, coordination |
| L3 Support Engineer | Production bug escalation | Root cause analysis, hotfix coordination, KB articles |
Exit Criteria:
- Change approved
- Release deployed
- Support handoff complete
Team Interaction Model
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ PHASE GATES │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ Phase 1 → Phase 2: Architecture Review │
│ Phase 2 → Phase 3: Environment Readiness │
│ Phase 3 → Phase 4: Feature Complete + Code Review │
│ Phase 4 → Phase 5: Security + QA Sign-off │
│ Phase 5 → Release: SRE + Change Approval │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Communication Channels
| Channel | Purpose | Participants |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture Review Board | Tech decisions | Team 2, Team 4, Team 5 |
| Security Review | Security gates | Team 3, Team 9 |
| Release Coordination | Deployment planning | Team 11, Team 12, Team 7 Lead |
| Incident Response | Production issues | Team 11, Team 12 |
Agent Team Mapping
For AI agent teams, map to these standardized roles:
| Agent Role | Maps To | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Planner | Solution Architect + BSA | Requirements analysis, solution design |
| Coder | Senior Backend/Frontend Engineer | Implementation |
| Reviewer | Technical Lead + QA Architect | Code review, quality gates |
| Security | Security Architect + AppSec | Security review, vulnerability checks |
| Tester | SDET + QA Architect | Automated testing, validation |
| Ops | SRE Lead + Platform Engineer | Deployment, monitoring |
Quick Reference: Team Responsibilities by Phase
| Phase | Teams | Key Output |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1, 2, 3 | Approved architecture, budget, compliance |
| 2 | 4, 5, 6 | Platform ready, infrastructure provisioned |
| 3 | 7, 8 | Working code, integrations complete |
| 4 | 9, 10 | Security clearance, quality sign-off |
| 5 | 11, 12 | Production deployment, operational handoff |
Last Updated: 2026-02-15 Owner: Enterprise Architecture Team