What is your role as a WS developer?

[Kathy Sierra]

Howdy all,
I could sure use your help with something, and I think it might be useful for everyone here to read your responses, although you can respond to me privately if you don't want to post publicly in this topic.

Sun Educational Services (my employer) is investigating the role of Web Services developers, to see how it fits in with our current and future course offerings, and our current and future Java Certifications. With J2EE 1.4 on the horizon, we're interested in knowing how web services developers would describe the nature of their jobs... is it more about architecture and design than implementation? Just the opposite? Are you an XML expert? Does one NEED to be in order to be a web services developer?
So... if anyone here can provide some input, I would *really* appreciate it.
FYI - once we have defined the role, we will be conducting a much more in-depth survey, and if you are interested in participating in that, SunEd will give you (if you're at all interested) a voucher for one of following exams (you pick): SCJP, SCWCD, or the new EJB exam. (Or, if you prefer, a future exam).
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So, here are the preliminary questions for anyone who IS already developing web services, in some way:
1) How would you describe your job, if you were writing a job description for someone to replace you? Like, WHAT do you actually do? Include *only* the things related to Web Services, so if you are only 50% on Web Services, then describe only the things you do during that 50%.
2) How much of your Web Services development time, as a percentage, do you feel is spent on:
*Architecture
* Design
* Implementation
* Testing
3) Are you an XML expert? Does someone *need* to be an XML expert in order to be a Web Services developer today?
4) Which technologies are you using, and how much time do you spend (as a percentage) working with each?
XML
ebXML
JAX[whatever]
WSDL
SOAP
UDDI
// list any others...
5) As a Web Services developer, rate how important AND how much time you spend on these...
A) Performance issues
B) Security issues
C) Implementation details -- just getting the darn things to work
D) Transactions
E) Creating web services clients/consumers
6) If you were going to hire someone whose sole job was to do Web Services development, based on what YOU do as a Web Services developer, what would you look for in terms of experience? (Assume there was an unlimited number of qualified developers out there
7) What percentage of your Web Services development time is spent on server side (i.e. developing/exposing web services) and what percentage if on client side (i.e. building clients that access web services.). How important is it to your testing, to build web services clients?
Any other comments you want to share would be great!
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you
-Kathy (aka cowgirl)

[kfay]

Answers in bold under questions:
1) How would you describe your job, if you were writing a job description for someone to replace you? Like, WHAT do you actually do? Include *only* the things related to Web Services, so if you are only 50% on Web Services, then describe only the things you do during that 50%.
Design, develop, configure and test java classes (servlets, process objects) to be web serviced at the highest level of abstraction (re-use as a common component).
2) How much of your Web Services development time, as a percentage, do you feel is spent on:
*Architecture - 10%
*Design - 15%
*Implementation - 30%
*Testing - 45%
3) Are you an XML expert? Does someone *need* to be an XML expert in order to be a Web Services developer today?
On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the strongest, my XML skill level is an 8
4) Which technologies are you using, and how much time do you spend (as a percentage) working with each?
XML - 20%
ebXML - None
JAX[whatever] - JAXP - 15%
WSDL - 25%
SOAP - 15%
UDDI - none
// list any others...
dom4j - 25%
5) As a Web Services developer, rate how important AND how much time you spend on these...
I scaled it 1 to 5 (1 being most important)
A) Performance issues 5 - 5% of the time
B) Security issues 4 - 10% of the time
C) Implementation details -- just getting the darn things to work 1 - 50% of the time
D) Transactions3 - 10% of the time
E) Creating web services clients/consumers2 - 25% of the time

6) If you were going to hire someone whose sole job was to do Web Services development, based on what YOU do as a Web Services developer, what would you look for in terms of experience? (Assume there was an unlimited number of qualified developers out there
mid-senior level java, J2EE developer. 1 year experience with some type of distributed application (EAI, JMS, Message driven beans, Socket programming)
7) What percentage of your Web Services development time is spent on server side (i.e. developing/exposing web services) and what percentage if on client side (i.e. building clients that access web services.). How important is it to your testing, to build web services clients?
65% is spent on server side development, configuration. 45% is spent on developing clients and testing. Having a client is critical in our testing effort as our callers are transaction dependent on the data being returned from the web service.

[Chad McGowan]

Originally posted by Mike Vick:
65% is spent on server side development, configuration. 45% is spent on developing clients and testing. Having a client is critical in our testing effort as our callers are transaction dependent on the data being returned from the web service.

Well, at least you are giving it a 110% effort!