Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for an Industry Developer

💰 $110,000 - $185,000

Software DevelopmentBusiness DevelopmentIndustry SolutionsTechnology Evangelism

🎯 Role Definition

An Industry Developer is a unique and strategic hybrid professional who serves as the critical link between our core technology platform and the specific, nuanced needs of a target industry vertical (such as Financial Services, Healthcare, or Manufacturing). This role moves beyond traditional software development; you are a builder, a strategist, a subject matter expert, and a technical evangelist all in one. You'll immerse yourself in an industry's ecosystem, understand its key challenges and opportunities, and then leverage your deep engineering skills to design, prototype, and build compelling solutions, reference architectures, and proofs-of-concept that demonstrate the power of our platform and drive adoption with key customers and partners.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Software Engineer
  • Solutions Architect / Solutions Engineer
  • Technical Product Manager
  • Industry-Specific Business Analyst with a strong technical background

Advancement To:

  • Principal Industry Developer / Lead Industry Strategist
  • Director of Industry Solutions
  • Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for an industry-focused business unit or startup

Lateral Moves:

  • Developer Advocate / Technology Evangelist
  • Enterprise Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  1. Deeply research and analyze target industry trends, competitive landscapes, regulatory requirements, and emerging technologies to identify high-impact opportunities for our platform.
  2. Design, develop, and maintain high-quality, production-ready reference implementations, solution accelerators, and reusable components tailored to specific industry use cases.
  3. Build and showcase compelling, end-to-end technical demonstrations and proofs-of-concept (PoCs) that address the specific pain points of our most strategic customers.
  4. Act as the primary technical subject matter expert for your assigned industry, providing guidance and insights to internal teams including sales, product management, and marketing.
  5. Collaborate directly with strategic customers and partners in co-development projects, acting as a trusted technical advisor to guide their architecture and implementation.
  6. Author and publish high-quality technical content, including whitepapers, in-depth blog posts, tutorials, and code samples that establish thought leadership in the industry.
  7. Present technical sessions, workshops, and demonstrations at industry conferences, developer meetups, and customer-facing events to drive awareness and adoption.
  8. Translate complex industry requirements and customer feedback into actionable technical requirements and user stories for the core product and engineering teams.
  9. Develop and maintain a deep understanding of the partner ecosystem within your industry, identifying potential technology partners and contributing to integration strategies.
  10. Create and deliver technical enablement materials and training sessions for our field teams (Solutions Architects, Sales Engineers) to scale their industry-specific knowledge.
  11. Influence the product roadmap by championing industry-specific features and capabilities, backed by data, customer evidence, and a clear business case.
  12. Engage with industry standards bodies and open-source communities, representing the company and contributing to specifications that align with our strategic goals.
  13. Develop scalable, robust data models and API contracts that reflect industry best practices and facilitate seamless integration for customers and partners.
  14. Prototype solutions using a wide array of technologies, including cloud services, AI/ML platforms, containerization, and data analytics tools, to find the best fit for the problem.
  15. Provide hands-on coding and architectural leadership for strategic industry initiatives, ensuring solutions are well-designed, secure, and performant.
  16. Systematically gather and synthesize feedback from the field, customers, and the broader industry to create a continuous feedback loop into the product development lifecycle.
  17. Evaluate and benchmark third-party and competitive solutions to maintain a clear understanding of our platform's positioning and differentiation.
  18. Act as a player-coach, mentoring other engineers and technical staff who are interested in developing deeper industry expertise.
  19. Drive the technical validation process for new industry solutions, ensuring they meet a high bar for quality, usability, and business impact before a broader launch.
  20. Work closely with the marketing team to ensure the technical accuracy and authenticity of industry-focused campaigns, messaging, and collateral.
  21. Define and instrument key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the adoption and impact of the industry solutions and assets you create.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expert-level proficiency in at least one modern programming language such as Python, Go, Java, or C#.
  • Extensive hands-on experience with a major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including IaaS, PaaS, serverless, and container services (Kubernetes, Docker).
  • Strong understanding of microservices architecture, event-driven systems, and API design (REST, gRPC).
  • Proven experience in data engineering, including data modeling, ETL/ELT pipelines, and familiarity with tools like Apache Spark, Kafka, or data warehousing solutions.
  • Ability to rapidly prototype and build full-stack applications and Minimum Viable Products (MVPs).
  • Familiarity with industry-specific data formats, protocols, and standards (e.g., FHIR/HL7 in Healthcare, FIX in Finance, OPC-UA in Manufacturing).
  • Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform or CloudFormation.
  • Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps best practices.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional Communication: Ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical executive audiences clearly and persuasively.
  • Business Acumen: A natural curiosity and ability to understand business models, market dynamics, and what drives customer value in a specific industry.
  • Consultative Mindset: A talent for listening, asking insightful questions, and framing problems and solutions from the customer's perspective.
  • Strategic Thinking: The capacity to see the bigger picture, connect technical possibilities to business strategy, and prioritize work based on impact.
  • Influence & Collaboration: Proven ability to work effectively across cross-functional teams and influence without direct authority.
  • Self-Directed & Proactive: A high degree of personal initiative and the ability to thrive in an environment with ambiguous goals and frequent context-switching.
  • Empathy: A deep-seated desire to understand and solve customer problems.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical and demonstrable experience.

Preferred Education:

Master's Degree in Computer Science, or an advanced degree combining technology with an industry focus (e.g., MBA, Master's in Health Informatics, Master's in Financial Engineering).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Finance
  • Healthcare Administration / Informatics
  • Manufacturing Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

7-12 years of progressive experience in software development, solutions architecture, or a related hands-on technical role.

Preferred:

At least 3+ years of direct experience building solutions for, or working within, a specific target industry (e.g., Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Energy, or Manufacturing). Prior experience in a customer-facing technical role (such as Solutions Architect, Sales Engineer, or Professional Services Consultant) is a significant advantage. A portfolio of public-facing work (e.g., GitHub, technical blogs, conference talks) is highly desirable.

Explore More Careers