Developer English guide
IT Job Roles in English: Every Position You Need to Know
September 7, 2026
A bilingual reference covering the most common IT job titles across product, data, web, embedded systems, game development, and mobile. Learn what each role does and what skills it requires.
Key Takeaways
- IT has dozens of specializations: knowing their English names helps you in interviews, job searches, and team conversations.
- Product Manager (PM) and Product Owner (PO) are related but different: PM owns the vision, PO manages the backlog.
- Data Scientist and ML Engineer are often confused: the scientist builds the model, the engineer ships it.
- SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) applies software engineering to operations. The role was created at Google.
- In mobile, both native (Swift, Kotlin) and cross-platform (React Native, Flutter) are in high demand.
1. Product Roles
Product roles define what gets built and why. These people work at the intersection of business, design, and engineering.
Product Manager (PM)
The PM owns the product vision and roadmap. They decide what the team builds next and communicate the strategy to stakeholders.
Product Owner (PO)
The PO bridges the team and stakeholders inside an Agile process. They manage and prioritize the backlog so engineers always know what to work on.
UX Designer
The UX Designer designs the user experience end to end. They conduct research, create wireframes, and build interactive prototypes.
UI Designer
The UI Designer handles the visual layer of the product. They work with design systems, typography, color, and component libraries.
UX Researcher
The UX Researcher conducts user research to inform product decisions. They run usability tests, interviews, and surveys to find out how real users behave.
Product Analyst
The Product Analyst analyzes product metrics and helps the team define success criteria. They translate data into actionable recommendations.
2. Data Roles
Data roles cover the full lifecycle of information: from raw collection to business insights and production-grade machine learning systems.
Data Analyst
The Data Analyst queries databases and visualizes data to find business insights. They answer questions like 'why did revenue drop last quarter?'
Data Engineer
The Data Engineer builds and maintains the pipelines that move and transform data. They are responsible for the infrastructure that makes data available to analysts and scientists.
Data Scientist
The Data Scientist builds predictive models and applies machine learning to solve business problems. They sit between research and engineering.
Machine Learning Engineer (ML Engineer)
The ML Engineer takes models from the Data Scientist and puts them into production. They build inference systems and make sure models scale and perform reliably.
Data Architect
The Data Architect designs the overall data strategy and infrastructure for an organization. They decide what databases, pipelines, and governance frameworks the company uses.
BI Developer (Business Intelligence Developer)
The BI Developer builds dashboards and reports that help business teams make decisions. They connect data sources to visualization tools.
MLOps Engineer
The MLOps Engineer manages the deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle of machine learning models in production. They apply DevOps practices to the ML workflow.
3. Web Development Roles
Web development covers the entire stack: from the pixels users see to the servers that power the product, and the infrastructure that keeps everything running.
Frontend Developer
The Frontend Developer builds the user-facing side of web applications. They turn designs into interactive interfaces that run in the browser.
Backend Developer
The Backend Developer builds server-side logic, APIs, and database interactions. They handle the business logic that the frontend relies on.
Full Stack Developer
The Full Stack Developer works on both the frontend and the backend. They can take a feature from design to production without handing it off.
Web Performance Engineer
The Web Performance Engineer optimizes load times and Core Web Vitals. They profile pages, reduce bundle sizes, and improve the user experience on slow networks.
DevOps Engineer
The DevOps Engineer manages CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure, and deployments. They automate the path from code commit to production.
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
The SRE ensures system reliability and uptime. They apply software engineering to operations, define SLOs, and are on call when things break.
Platform Engineer
The Platform Engineer builds internal developer tools and platforms so other engineers can ship faster. They are often described as building an 'internal developer platform.'
Cloud Engineer / Cloud Architect
The Cloud Engineer designs and manages cloud infrastructure. The Cloud Architect works at a higher level, defining the overall cloud strategy and architecture patterns.
Security Engineer
The Security Engineer identifies vulnerabilities and implements security best practices. They work across the stack to protect users and company data.
QA Engineer / SDET
The QA Engineer writes automated tests and ensures the product works correctly before it reaches users. SDET is a more engineering-heavy variant of this role.
4. Embedded and Systems Roles
These roles work close to the hardware. They write software that runs on physical devices, from microcontrollers to custom silicon.
Embedded Systems Engineer
The Embedded Systems Engineer writes firmware for microcontrollers and hardware devices. They work with limited resources: memory, CPU cycles, and power budgets.
Firmware Engineer
The Firmware Engineer develops low-level software that runs directly on hardware, often without an operating system. Their code is often the first to run when a device powers on.
Systems Programmer
The Systems Programmer works close to the operating system layer. They write performance-critical code where every microsecond matters.
Hardware Engineer
The Hardware Engineer designs electronic circuits and printed circuit boards (PCBs). They work with schematic tools and collaborate closely with firmware engineers.
FPGA Engineer
The FPGA Engineer programs field-programmable gate arrays to implement custom hardware logic. FPGAs are used in high-performance computing, signal processing, and networking.
IoT Engineer (Internet of Things)
The IoT Engineer connects physical devices to the internet and to each other. They work across firmware, networking protocols, and cloud backends.
5. Game Development Roles
Game development combines software engineering, art, and design. Roles range from low-level graphics programming to high-level game design.
Game Developer
The Game Developer builds game logic, systems, and mechanics. They implement everything from player movement to inventory systems and AI behaviors.
Game Engine Programmer
The Game Engine Programmer builds or extends the game engine itself. They work on rendering, physics, audio, and the core systems that other developers rely on.
Graphics Programmer
The Graphics Programmer writes shaders and rendering code. They are responsible for how the game looks: lighting, shadows, post-processing effects.
Level Designer
The Level Designer designs game levels and environments. They shape the player experience through space, pacing, and the placement of enemies and objects.
Technical Artist
The Technical Artist bridges the gap between art and engineering. They optimize assets, write shader tools, and help artists work efficiently within technical constraints.
Game QA Tester
The Game QA Tester plays the game methodically to find bugs, crashes, and gameplay issues. They write detailed bug reports and track issues across builds.
AI Programmer (Games)
The AI Programmer in games builds NPC behavior, pathfinding systems, and decision-making algorithms. This is different from the ML/AI roles in the data section.
6. Mobile Development Roles
Mobile development covers native apps for iOS and Android, cross-platform frameworks, and the infrastructure to release and test them.
iOS Developer
The iOS Developer builds apps for iPhone and iPad. They work within Apple's ecosystem and follow Apple Human Interface Guidelines.
Android Developer
The Android Developer builds apps for Android devices. They work with Google's ecosystem and handle the wide variety of device sizes and OS versions.
React Native Developer
The React Native Developer builds cross-platform mobile apps using JavaScript and React. One codebase runs on both iOS and Android.
Flutter Developer
The Flutter Developer builds cross-platform apps using Google's Flutter framework and the Dart language. Flutter compiles to native code for iOS, Android, web, and desktop.
Mobile QA Engineer
The Mobile QA Engineer tests mobile apps across different devices, screen sizes, and OS versions. They automate tests and check for platform-specific issues.
Mobile DevOps / Mobile Release Engineer
The Mobile Release Engineer manages the CI/CD pipeline for mobile apps and handles releases to the App Store and Google Play. They automate builds, signing, and deployment.
What's your next step?
Now that you know the roles, prepare your English for the interview process.
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Written by
Roxana LafuenteLingua-e's founder
Roxana Lafuente is a software engineer with 8+ years of experience. At the beginning of her career, even though she had already passed the First Certificate in English, she still froze every time she had to speak up in the daily standup. That was a gap nobody was fixing. After 2,000+ standups, she figured out what actually builds fluency: practice that looks like your real work. She built Lingua-e so other developers wouldn't have to take the long road to feel confident working in an international development environment.