Robotic Process Automation is fast evolving. Beyond rule-based RPA systems, RPA developers are creating smarter automation solutions that do more than automate mundane and monotonous business tasks. Every business, no matter its shape or size, now requires some extent of automation. Automation can help businesses harness a tremendous number of benefits including lower operating expenses, value-packed products and services, and heightened customer satisfaction.
It comes as no surprise that Mordor Intelligence predicts the RPA market worldwide is fast expanding at a CAGR of 29.70, moving from USD 3.10 billion to USD 11.37 billion by 2027. Thus, the surging demand for RPA solutions has caused a higher demand for RPA developers.
This article will answer the question “What is an RPA developer?” It will also uncover insights into the day-to-day activities of developers and different aspects of RPA development. In the end, you can explore when to hire an RPA developer to curate the best automation solutions.
Table of Contents
What is an RPA Developer?
RPA developers’ duties are related to automation tools and technologies. They have the responsibility to design, develop, and maintain automation tools and solutions. They utilize RPA tools to build, deploy or integrate software robots or “bots”. These bots will comprise your virtual workforce that complements your human workforce to optimize your processes. These robots mimic human actions when interacting with various applications and websites to perform designated tasks.
Another way to describe what RPA developers do is that they design automation tasks and solve automation-based problems. Their primary focus lies in devising automated solutions for repetitive processes. This, in turn, allows humans or business users to hand over repetitive processes to robots, so they have time for more creative endeavors.
What Does an RPA Developer Do?
The core job and duty of every RPA developer is to look for precarious aspects of your business that can be streamlined. They begin by learning how people interact with various domains and industries (IT, finance, support, marketing, and HR) within a business. Their goal is to understand the challenges these people face when doing their jobs. They concentrate on the aspects of these jobs that are manual, tedious, and repetitive.
With the new job-related information in mind, they brainstorm solutions. These solutions must be efficient. But also, these solutions should reduce costs and significantly improve revenue for the overall business. So, every solution they create must align with that organization’s goals, targets, and strategies. It’s no wonder successful RPA development solutions often require that businesses provide all interaction scenarios. These scenarios may be positive or negative, alongside service-level agreements. This ensures that they develop the best automation solutions.
RPA Developers vs. Software Developers
Software developers and RPA developers share many notable attributes, but their work is slightly different. Software developers design, develop, and test software applications. In contrast, RPA developers specialize in building solutions that emulate human activities. Imagine what it takes to enter, organize, and sort data for inventory. RPA developers train bots based on the actions you take when doing these tasks by using predefined rules. In the future, you can simply ask the robot to handle the inventory processing. This frees you to focus on evaluating what your inventory data is telling you directly and make better decisions. Other manual task examples include sales order processing, fraud detection, account reconciliation, and client data organization.
Roles and Titles of RPA Developers in RPA Development
While developing automation solutions is one of the most popular roles that RPA developers play, it is only one aspect of their job. In reality, when we talk of an RPA developer, we refer to different groups of individuals. Although it’s possible to have an RPA developer with cross-functional skills, it is rare to find one RPA developer who handles all roles and responsibilities. Let’s look at some general themes, titles, and roles these specialists play:
RPA Analyst
An RPA analyst’s focus is the planning phase. Their goal is to figure out where and how RPA development and implementation can help your company. They analyze company operations to identify critical bottlenecks that can hinder company growth.
RPA Solution Architects
An RPA solution architect creates the automation roadmap. They work with the RPA analysts to gather information about areas where they can implement automation solutions. They will have a sit-down with members of your workforce. This helps them gain one-on-one insights on the problems and aspects of work that can benefit from automation. Once they have enough information, they draw up the Process Definition Document (PDD), which details every step to be taken in automation. At this step, most RPA development companies will get on the drawing board with their clients. They will talk about working conditions, such as the number of RPA specialists for the project, time to be spent, and budget.
RPA Engineer
RPA Engineers work with pre-set requirements and documentation prepared by the RPA solution architects. These assets are instrumental in designing the entire RPA project. Their key role is to ensure bots can perform a series of tasks. RPA engineers focus on bot and ecosystem development. When developing bots, their primary responsibility is to ensure that the bot can perform a strict series of actions. Then they must create an ecosystem of tools for bot management and workforce administration. To make that ecosystem, they need to employ desktop or web applications, a training interface, a management panel, and a physical server to deploy the automation solution.
RPA Administrator
An RPA administrator participates in the development and testing phases. They provide maintenance and system support. At the core, their job is testing for bugs and helping resolve issues as they occur. Their responsibilities lie in making sure that the entire project fulfills all set requirements.
Production Manager
A product manager with special skills in RPA development supervises the entire project. They will collaborate with every RPA developer involved in the project to ensure a seamless production process. At the design stage, they provide valuable insights to help solution architects refine project blueprints. During the testing stage, they oversee every test and changes made to ensure that the finished product fulfills its intended purpose.
Conclusion
Before you can hire RPA developers, you must first understand the roles played by RPA developers. This will help you figure out the roles and skills you need for different stages of RPA development. From working as analytical experts to engineering robots and managing production workflows, these experts cover a wide range of skills and responsibilities.
Now that you know the basic roles and skills involved in RPA development, you can put together the best team for improving your business processes and productivity.
Want to discuss specifics in your organization? Leave us a note.