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Roles and Responsibilities
What What each role does across the SOPs, in one place. Roles describe responsibility within the processes; the processes themselves live in the Lifecycle, Recurring Processes, and Standards sections.
How to use Find your role, see what you own, and jump straight into the SOPs you drive. For accountability per phase, see the RACI matrix.

Roles are referenced by title, never by individual name. The mapping of current people to these roles is kept separately in Current Owners so the SOPs stay generic.

Jump to: Engineering · QA · Project Management · Product · DevOps · Support · Leadership

Engineering

Mission: Build correct, tested, maintainable software and keep it healthy in production. Key partners: QA (handover and fixes), DevOps (builds and deploys), Product and PM (scope).

Owns

  • Developing and maintaining code to the agreed requirements and coding standards.
  • Writing unit tests and clearing the static-analysis quality gate before review.
  • Reviewing and approving QA's test cases in the Internal Test Case Review (ITCR) for the features you build.
  • Disciplined use of the branching model and pull requests; never committing to protected branches.
  • Producing builds from frozen release branches and completing the Build Ticket.
  • Fixing QA-found defects on the release branch, and urgent production issues via hotfix.
  • Monitoring their platform after every deploy and debugging live issues.
  • Investigating reported issues and establishing their root cause (Issue Triage & Root Cause).
  • Logging work hours daily and keeping ticket status accurate.

SOPs you drive: Branching & Version Control · Development & Code Review · Test Case Design & ITCR (reviewing and approving test cases) · Build & QA Freeze · Defect Handling · Tagging & Deployment (tagging and merge-back) · Release Close-out · Hotfix · Post-Production Monitoring · Issue Triage & Root Cause (root-cause analysis)

Standards that apply: Use AI-assisted development (plan before code, AI in review, living in-repo docs); keep each repo's documentation current per Documentation Standards; own your escaped-defect record and communicate impact areas clearly so QA can test them (Escaped Defects Analysis).

Templates you use most: PR template · Code review checklist · Build Ticket · Impact Analysis · Runbook

QA

Mission: Independently verify that a build is correct and safe to ship, and hold the quality gates. Key partners: Engineering (handover, impact analysis, fixes), Product (acceptance criteria).

Owns

  • Holding the acceptance gate: only accepting a build when its Build Ticket and impact analysis are complete.
  • Ensuring quality through comprehensive test planning and execution.
  • Participating in grooming and planning to clarify acceptance criteria and ensure testability.
  • Authoring the test plan and test cases for sprint work, and getting them approved by Development in the Internal Test Case Review (ITCR).
  • Running sanity, smoke, and regression suites against the approved test plan.
  • Reporting and tracking defects in the tracker against the correct JIRA Release.
  • Validating fixes and verifying story completion before the demo.

SOPs you drive: Test Case Design & ITCR · QA & Testing · Defect Handling (re-testing and go-ahead) · the acceptance step within Build & QA Freeze

Standards that apply: You post the release go-ahead comment on the Build Ticket that allows Tagging & Deployment; nothing ships without it. Own your escaped-defect record: if an impact area was communicated and you missed testing it, that is a QA-fault escaped defect (Escaped Defects Analysis). Concentrate regression where the impact analysis points.

Templates you use most: Impact Analysis form · Test plan skeleton · QA release go-ahead comment · Build Ticket

Project Management

Mission: Keep delivery on track and the process honored, and coordinate everyone involved. Key partners: All roles. The PM is the coordination hub.

Owns

  • Overseeing sprint execution and adherence to process timelines.
  • Facilitating daily standups and sprint ceremonies, and the monthly retrospective.
  • Ensuring tracker hygiene: stories and sub-tasks properly created, updated, and reflecting real-time status.
  • Monitoring progress, managing risks, and removing impediments.
  • Acting as the primary coordination point among Developers, QA, Product Owner, and stakeholders.
  • Ensuring adherence to every process in this playbook, and raising deviations in the retrospective.
  • Ensuring the Issue Triage & Root Cause SOP is followed so no reported issue is investigated and then dropped.
  • Closing the JIRA Release the same day a build ships.

SOPs you drive: Agile Ceremonies · Monthly Retrospective · Planning & Estimation (facilitation) · Release Close-out (JIRA Release closure) · coordination in Tagging & Deployment · SOP adherence for Issue Triage & Root Cause

Standards that apply: Enforce JIRA & Release Management discipline; facilitate Escaped Defects Analysis fairly and on evidence.

Templates you use most: Definition of Ready · Definition of Done · Release notes · RACI matrix

Product

Mission: Make sure the team builds the right things in the right order, with clear acceptance criteria. Key partners: PM (planning), Engineering and QA (clarifications), Leadership (priorities).

Owns (the Product Owner)

  • Owning the product backlog so it reflects business priorities.
  • Defining and communicating user stories, acceptance criteria, and priorities.
  • Participating in grooming, planning, and demo meetings.
  • Providing clarifications and ensuring stories are ready for development.
  • Approving completed stories in collaboration with stakeholders.
  • Documenting reported issues into JIRA tickets (problem statement, root cause, solution options with estimates) and prioritizing when they are fixed (Issue Triage & Root Cause).

SOPs you drive: Backlog & Grooming · priority-setting within Planning & Estimation · sign-off within the Sprint Demo (Agile Ceremonies) · documenting and prioritizing reported issues in Issue Triage & Root Cause

Standards that apply: Stories you bring to planning must meet the Definition of Ready; acceptance criteria must be testable so QA can verify them.

Templates you use most: Definition of Ready · Definition of Done

DevOps

Mission: Produce builds, run environments, and deploy safely, keeping infrastructure reliable. Key partners: Engineering (builds), QA (environments), Support and Management (deploy coordination).

Owns

  • Producing build artifacts from frozen release branches (for example mobile builds) and deploying backend builds to the dedicated QA environment.
  • Maintaining the dedicated QA and production environments.
  • Executing production deployments of tagged releases, after confirmation and coordination.
  • Supporting the logging and monitoring pipeline (for example RabbitMQ ingestion into the Google Cloud Console, Crashlytics and New Relic availability).
  • Maintaining the documentation deployment for this playbook (CI for the static site).

SOPs you drive: build production within Build & QA Freeze · environment provisioning for QA & Testing · deployment within Tagging & Deployment · pipeline support for Post-Production Monitoring

Standards that apply: Deployments happen only after Support and Management coordination; keep environments and deployment steps documented as runbooks (Documentation Standards).

Templates you use most: Runbook template · Build Ticket

Support

Mission: Give clients a fast, consistent, reliable experience, and route real issues to development cleanly. Key partners: Development Lead (escalation), Management (deploy awareness), clients.

Owns

  • Sending a first response to client requests within 2 minutes.
  • Triaging: client-side issue, application question Support can resolve, or something needing development.
  • Gathering the full escalation information block before escalating.
  • Escalating to the Development Lead on the official channel and logging in the Support Issues Sheet.
  • Relaying updates to clients clearly and on time, and closing tickets on resolution.
  • Following backup procedures (calling the lead, then the backup lead) when SLAs are missed.
  • Noting original configurations and setting revert reminders for any workaround.

SOPs you drive: Production Support (the full workflow and SLAs live here)

Standards that apply: Be ready before a deploy: Tagging & Deployment requires coordinating with you so you know what is changing. Help determine severity with Development for hotfix decisions.

Templates you use most: Escalation information block · Incident report

Leadership

Mission: Set direction, confirm releases, and hold the organization accountable to the process and to quality. Key partners: Product (priorities), PM (delivery), Engineering and QA (quality), Support (client impact).

Owns

  • Providing high-level business direction and strategic input.
  • Supporting the Product Owner in prioritization decisions when required.
  • Participating in sprint demos (optional) to validate alignment with business goals.
  • Attending the Internal Test Case Review for sprint features to confirm coverage.
  • Confirming production deployments alongside Support coordination.
  • As the engineering manager or head of engineering, vetting the root cause and settling the solution for a reported issue when the developer cannot (Issue Triage & Root Cause).
  • Setting and owning the escaped-defect allowances per person and per seniority, and the penalty structure.
  • Running the 6-month review cycle and the annual promotion and salary reviews that depend on the escaped-defect metric.
  • Ensuring the Manager-level monitoring duty (daily dashboard review) is upheld.

SOPs you drive: deploy confirmation in Tagging & Deployment · accountability and thresholds in Escaped Defects Analysis · oversight of Post-Production Monitoring (Manager daily dashboard review) · solution sign-off in Issue Triage & Root Cause when escalated

Standards that apply: Thresholds and penalties are configured in individual goals, not in this playbook; Leadership owns those numbers. Promote a culture where the process is followed and deviations surface in the Monthly Retrospective.

Templates you use most: RACI matrix · Escaped Defects Analysis