Definition
In the application-development process of Betty Blocks, the business technologist plays a role as the bridge between business needs and technical capabilities. Imagine them as translator who can understand both the language of business goals and the platform possibilities.
Business technologists are well aware of application development and programming in general and possess the expertise to operate all the basic no-code features of Betty Blocks. As a result, they can create mid-level applications from the ground up, supporting citizen developers who typically do not have experience with complex development.
Between business and technology
James is a business technologist and an external builder working 32 hours a week at the Betty Blocks platform. Bringing a unique blend of legal expertise and understanding of technologies, he is responsible for ensuring that the application built for his company Financial Minds solves the basic problems.
Knowing most legal procedures and workflows, James converts them into concise and effective features within Betty Blocks. This empowers him to create applications such as automated contract routing or regulatory compliance checklists, simplifying legal duties and saving his company's precious time and resources.
Responsibilities and skills
Let’s dive a little deeper into the responsibilities a business technologist may take over as they serve the key figure within the building processes, working with mostly each feature presented at Betty Blocks.
Imagine this scenario:
A team of citizen developers has defined the MVP of a future product, and now the product owner can see which ‘must-have’ features might be completed by the business technologists.
Depending on the complexity, the tasks can be shared between citizen developers and business technologists.
Usually, mid-technical complexity tasks like building the CRUD functionality, establishing data models and their relations, and expanding generated actions are assigned to a business technologist.
The low-technical tasks are associated with citizen developers. They can configure an application, add some specific design elements to the front end, and deal with all kinds of minor improvements. Read more about them here.
Whenever the citizen developer feels they are stuck somewhere in the process, they can address their questions to the business technologist. This way, healthy collaboration can be established within a team.
In their turn, business technologists can approach low-code developers if they can’t deal with a task’s complexity.
If we collect together all the responsibilities, tools, and skills needed for a business technologist, we’ll have the following:
Using no-code (and programming) expertise for efficient development: business technologists deal with the main pillars of Betty Blocks, easily switching between the page builder, data modeling, and action builder. No matter where this builder starts his journey, they still will be able to fulfill a bigger part of an application flow.
Filling the gap between business and IT department: by having a well-trained business technologist, it’s easier for businesses to stay in touch with the stages of product realization. For IT departments, it saves a great deal of time.
Create technological solutions that address the unique needs and vision of a specific business use case. Business technologists explore the platform to the limits, so sometimes the solutions are outside the scope of pre-built templates/blocks/steps provided by Betty Blocks. If that is the case and custom coding solutions are needed - the low-coders come into play
Strong communication and collaboration: it goes without saying that without proper and effective communication skills, no collaboration with stakeholders, and fellow developers will be possible
By default, all the permissions on the organization level are disabled for the business technologist role. However, some of them are likely to be given to them by the organization admin of low-code developers. Find more information about that here.
Conclusion
Without exaggeration, the business technologist’s role is the most important in regular platform-building practices. They empower citizen developers, accelerate development, and bridge the gap between business needs and technical possibilities. With their expertise, you can unlock the full potential of Betty Blocks and create powerful applications that drive your business forward.