SENIOR ANALYST, APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & INFRASTRUCTURE

Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent technology and market research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice about technology's impact on business and consumers. For 22 years, Forrester has been a thought leader and trusted advisor, helping global clients lead in their markets through its research, consulting, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more information, visit www.forrester.com

Senior Analyst, Application Development & Infrastructure

The Senior Analyst, ADI/Application Development Strategy and Tools, conducts groundbreaking research and delivers analysis and advice through written reports, consulting, client inquiry, speeches, and other deliverables. The Senior Analyst will write, speak, and advise clients about Forrester?s research covering strategies for application development executives, with a particular focus on leading-edge approaches for software development.

The Senior Analyst position combines industry knowledge and thought leadership; a facility with primary research methodologies; and top-notch writing, presentation, and client interface skills. An analyst must be able to marshal data, analysis, ideas, and recommendations into compelling deliverables that help clients improve their business results.

Responsibilities:
Analysts work as part of a small, high-performance team and collaborate with team members in all aspects of the job. He or she will:

?Maintain a current level of expertise in the major issues facing application development (AD) executives today ? and stay abreast of the evolving role of the AD executive. Today?s issues include:
?Applying the right tools and techniques to the wide range of application types needed today, including distributed and composite applications with rich interactions, running over emerging application platforms.
?Understanding the right architectures and technologies for dealing with multichannel user interactions and application patterns often needed today, whether for Web, desktop, mobile, or other interaction channels.
?Delivering high quality software projects in an iterative and incremental way using innovative approaches such as SOA and Agile methods, with a focus on optimizing organizational structure and processes to that end. This analyst would not be the primary analyst responsible for methodologies, but would need to understand issues and best practices for processes common today, such as model-driven development.
?Managing to the right skills mix, based on informed choices of languages, platforms, and modeling approaches, to sustain organizational capability as needed to meet present and future application requirements.
?Understanding how and when to source work in innovative ways that maximize effectiveness, taking advantage of the wide range of sourcing options available today ? while optimizing for global delivery. Although Forrester has another team of analysts focused on sourcing options and strategies, the application development analyst collaborates with those analysts in helping the application development executive take those strategies down to a more granular organizational and project level, as most AD organizations today must plan based on the expectation that sourcing strategies will introduce issues to address around skills, process, handoffs, collaboration, and global delivery.
?Staying abreast of the latest developments in application development approaches, tools, technologies, and industry context, to ensure that the organization is prepared to respond to the latest opportunities, and risks.
?Provide written research on topics related to these areas of expertise that meets Forrester?s standard for quality and quantity.
?Understand and analyze the strategy, positioning, and prospects of relevant application development vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, Borland, and others, and predict the changing dynamics of the market?s offerings.
?Communicate and ineract at a high level with major vendors and enterprise customers to understand their visions and offerings.
?Deliver consulting assignments including presentations, written papers, and direct client interactions, with a special focus on helping application development executives develop and execute the strategies Forrester advises for each context.
?Provide timely telephone and email inquiry responses to queries placed by clients in these areas of expertise. Advise clients by applying our research to their specific business environment and our ideas to solve the problem.
?Present at Forrester-sponsored conferences and briefings as well as Forrester teleconferences.

Requirements:
Forrester is looking for people who are inspired and inspiring. Our product is our intellectual capital, so we welcome and reward intellectual excellence, curiosity, and sophisticated thinking and look for:
?Ten years overall relevant experience, ideally with a combination of an IT background with work in a consulting or relevant vendor context.
?Five or more years of experience on software development/engineering projects for relatively recent application platforms; for this position that experience does not have to be the most recent job, but it is important to understand the issues facing application development executives today.
?Experience as a product manager or pre-sales engineer (or equivalent positions) with an application platform or tools vendor or consulting company would be relevant as well, if background also included hands-on development or project management experience.
?Two or more years of experience in a management role of software developers in teams or larger organizations.
?Direct experience with application development tools and technologies. This should include component- or service-based or model-driven enterprise-oriented tools, with a general understanding of Web development.
?Basic knowledge of leading application development languages, tools, and architectures including Java, Visual Basic, C#, etc.
?Moderate knowledge of the programming models used today, including J2EE (now Java EE), Microsoft.NET, and emerging Web Services platforms and management infrastructure.
?Strong academic record of achievement ? B.A/B.S. required, M.S. degree preferred.
?Excellent verbal, written, presentation, and computer skills.
?Prior experience or training in searching online databases.
?The ability to travel 30% to 40% of the time, although most trips would be short, a few days at most.

Forrester Research is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer; M/F/D/V are especially encouraged to apply.
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