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00:00 - Start
00:34 - Introduction
01:19 - Who is a No-code Developer?
20:25 - Summary
Hello, this is Kamil Tarczyński. Welcome to another episode of our Just No Code podcast. Today we will delve into a very interesting topic from the perspective of companies, employees, or those of you who want to start your journey with No Code, and want to learn how it works. Specifically, we will talk about who exactly is a No Code Developer. We will discuss the roles we can distinguish, how being a no-code developer works, if there are any roles at all. How we can divide this market, what challenges these people face, the differences between these roles, and what they actally do, what knowledge they should have. At the end, we will also talk a bit about how to start your own adventure with no-code, where to start, and where to look for knowledge. I hope this episode will be helpful for you. Welcome.
So, let's start with who exactly is a NoCodeDeveloper. A NoCodeDeveloper is essentially a developer, a programmer. They create applications in a slightly different way than a traditional developer because... They don't actually program them. At least that's what is said.
No code, low code developer - these roles will be very similar because it is known that a low code developer will use small amounts of code somewhere. A no code developer, not really. That's a pretty strict definition.
However, these two roles often overlap, and the platforms for no code, low code, the terminology also heavily intersects here. For example, the Bubble platform or the Xano platform, both of these platforms are called no code platforms. They allow creating applications without using code, but we can add code there. We have the opportunity to add code, functions, scripts, elements, etc., using our own code.
Again, at this point, it's more about considering it low-code, not no-code, but let's not go too deep into the nomenclature here because, like everything else, this terminology is currently diverging, it's never strictly monitored. We usually use the term no-code because a large part of the applications are created without code, using integrations or something similar.
So why do we even distinguish a role within the role of a no-code developer? At least we do it. We distinguish this role because, again, as there are developers full start, front-end, back-end, there are developers for PHP, Laravel, JavaScript, C-Sharp, whatever you call it, we've encountered many technologies with various names, and you probably have too. So, just like in the field of no-code, we are also able to distinguish various roles based on what they actually do or what challenges they face. And we usually distinguish Two roles. Two roles that we divide at a very high level of the world of no-code developers. They are... Let's call it in quotes professional no coders and casual no coders, you know? Those who engage in it as a hobby or occasionally. Those engaging occasionally, the casual ones, we can confidently call citizen developers. I will explain exactly what this name entails, what it exactly means. The professionals are simply no code developers who engage in it professionally daily. Now, let's move on to these roles.
Let's start with the citizen developer. Who exactly is a citizen developer? Why do we speak of distinguishing them and so on? Why do we say they are involved in it occasionally or daily, but not professionally? In our understanding, a Citizen Developer is someone who deals with something other than programming on a daily basis. For example, logistics, marketing, sales, working simply in a department of the company, be it marketing, logistics, or any other. This person uses various tools, works with different technologies daily. For instance, in the case of Office or the Office suite, such users were called power users, and they were the ones who created Excels that the whole company operated on.
Certainly, you know such people in every company, there exists such a person who deals with marketing or logistics or anything else on a daily basis, but they created all those super Excel sheets you filled in all the data, created offers, calculated various things, conducted reports, or whatever else you did, those people created those Excel sheets. They are usually very technically minded people, so-called early adopters, who adopt new technologies very quickly, very keen also on using new technologies or new tools. these people will also be able to become citizen developers in your companies.
That means they can learn no-code at a basic, general level, which will allow them indeed to create some applications, some solutions, not in a professional manner, so they won't be pondering, hey, how to organize the database structure to be super efficient, or whether to bring workflow to the back-end or front-end, or how to make a query this way or another, what will be the cost of this workflow. how to optimize it, or if we can encapsulate it in a function to make it reusable? No. These people simply won't do that because they are not created for this.
We believe that the role of a citizen developer can be very valuable within an organization because such a person, knowing the basics of no-code issues, no-code tools, can build the first prototypes, working prototypes, or first versions of applications that the operations will use. What does it mean? Applications are better than Excel. Usually. They allow for more automation, greater data protection, and so on. Such people will often be able to validate ideas within your organizations. It means, if a company or a particular department in the company says, hey listen, we have problem x and we have an idea for solving this problem, let's build software. Okay. it makes some sense, it might help us, but building software is 300,000, 200,000, 500,000, depending of course on what kind of software.
So, we are not sure enough to invest such funds in building this software. At that moment, if you have a person who is actully able to build solutions themselves using no-code, they can build a working prototype of this solution, very early, very trimmed down, but... Once they have built such a solution, and the company starts using it, sees the benefit, sees that this solution has brought benefits, then the company knows that investing in building it professionally and then developing it, taking it outside to a no-code agency, or to a software house, to not again spend 200, 300, 400, 500 thousand but less,
That way, the company simply reduces the risk of failure with their idea because at that moment the idea is already validated, it works, needs to be improved, maybe rebuilt from scratch sometimes, and it can be developed because we know that it makes economic sense at this moment. We simply know that it will work out, pay off, or help us earn more money, or just automate operations in our company. various solutions, we can also just hire such a person directly for this, because it will help us in automation, in simply digitizing our business and will help us greatly reduce risk.
Of course, such a person still has their industry knowledge, so sometimes on one of the webinars, we used the term Domain No Coder meaning that... A programmer also has their domain they deal with daily, just like marketing, logistics, or anything else. They work with these people in that department, they understand that industry perfectly, they understand their domain they are dealing with, still work in it, but at the same time, they can build these solutions, validate them, prove that they just make sense and are worth investing in.
So this is the role of a citizen developer, such a power user in the company, who knows a given field, is not a super programmer, does not have to be a super programmer, and does not want to be a super programmer, simply wants to do cool things, prove their value, etc. I think in the coming years such roles, just like prompt engineer or such roles, will simply grow in importance in organizations, will be increasingly appreciated, noticed, such roles will start to emerge in organizations because... it will simply make economic sense. So I would close the loop here with this statement, who is a citizen developer.
On the other hand, we have the no-code developer role, which is the professional developer capable of creating applications in no-code. They possess extensive knowledge about APIs, application architecture, infrastructure, and you know, various intricacies regarding infrastructure, what servers are, how they function, how the whole hosting works, how to connect various integrations, how to write code pieces. This person is a regular, ordinary developer.
So, why do we call them a no-code developer? Because such a person is well-versed in no-code tools, capable of building very efficient solutions within them. Solutions that scale, solutions that solve problems, solutions that untangle the butter from the butter. It's simply a developer who decided they don't want to, you know, write lines of code non-stop, do repetitive tasks, but instead wants to automate a large part of their work, has extensive knowledge, and wants to use it more from a business-technological perspective. They want to assist clients, think about how a given solution should function to fulfill its tasks or business objectives to the fullest.
Thus, they have more opportunity to ponder, OK, we face such a challenge, or my client faces such a challenge, how we can build the whole architecture of the application, how we can build the whole application so that it works in a superb manner. Then, there's no longer so much time devoted to programming itself. More time can be spent on how to truly materialize, which is an additional value. That's the so-called added value, right? This is our added value that no-code developers can provide to their clients.
No-code platforms also divide into different platforms designed for various tasks. For example, we have Bubble, an all-in-one platform where we have both backend and frontend. We can build the whole solution on this platform, a whole web application. We can build just the backend, which we will release externally to integrate with something. And we can build just the frontend, which will also use some other backend.
We have Xano, which serves solely for building backends. So, there we can build only the backend, and backend developers will feel like a fish in water because they can build caches, reddis, base everything on dockers, kubernetes, build gigantic functions, divide them, integrate with various solutions. They can simply build a super efficient backend. We also have Webflow, which allows us to build a super performant frontend, add code there, connect it with some backend.
So, this is precisely the role of a citizen developer, such a power-user in the company, who has knowledge in a given field, is not a super programmer, does not have to be a super programmer, and does not want to be a super programmer, simply wants to do cool things, prove their value, etc.
I think in the coming years such roles, just like prompt engineer or such roles, will simply grow in importance in organizations, will be increasingly appreciated, noticed, indeed such roles will start to emerge in organizations because... it will simply make economic sense.
And on the other hand, we have the no-code developer role, which is the professional developer capable of creating applications in no-code. They possess extensive knowledge about APIs, application architecture, infrastructure.
It's simply a developer who decided they don't want to, you know, write lines of code non-stop, do repetitive tasks but instead wants to automate a large part of their work, has extensive knowledge, and wants to use it more from a business-technological perspective.
No-code platforms also divide into different platforms designed for various tasks. For example, we have Bubble, an all-in-one platform where we have both backend and frontend.
We, of course, have backend developers, those individuals who build just the backend and will focus solely on this. So, as you see, we again have this division, which is very broad, yet very narrow at the same time.
In the Polish internet, more and more various materials are appearing on how to become a no-code developer. We have our Facebook group, NoCodePolska, where discussions about no-code happen.
We have our academy, AppToYou.pl, where you can find a free 3-hour course on Bubble, so you can see how to start your adventure with Bubble. And, of course, we also have YouTube, where we have plenty of English-language materials on various platforms.
Each of these solutions also has its academy, its university available for free, where you can also go through their training, onboarding you to these solutions, showing step by step how to start working with this solution.
Very often, I would say in 95% of the cases, people who have been developers their whole life work with us. They decided on no-code because it simply optimizes work and allows for even better development because then we focus on developing really undiscovered or very interesting things instead of developing a login panel for the hundredth time. I hope you found this material interesting. Thank you very much for your attention. That's all from me today. See you.
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The No-Code / Low-Code Podcasts is a technology-focused podcast where we discuss digitalization, automation, website creation, app development online platform building, and no-code tools. You will learn about the pros and cons of low-code and no-code technologies and understand the basics of these tools. In our episodes, havenocode experts also cover business topics and highlight the best low-code and no-code platforms.
Discover how to utilize the best no-code and low-code platforms such as Bubble.io, Xano, Webflow, Flutter Flow, AppSheet, and Zapier. Learn to create apps without coding and expand your knowledge to become a citizen developer. Find out how the low-code and nocode industry is evolving in the world. Tune in and watch the Just No Code podcasts for insightful discussions on the world of no-code and low-code technologies! Join our no-code community!
