IT professionals have undergone major changes in recent years. The global pandemic has accelerated technology adoption, with a focus on remote collaboration, improved automation, and streamlining business operations.
But beyond the pandemic, keeping pace in the face of competition and rapid digital transformation has pushed industry professionals into a new era.
Low-code has become an essential tool for accelerating digital transformation, and according to studies it is also changing the role of the IT professional. Previous generations of employees focused on maintaining and building technology infrastructure. This new generation is, in turn, facing new challenges both in its function and in the way it interacts with the company’s technology.
The Evolution of Application Development
Unfortunately for professionals, the speed and amount of work required to keep an enterprise IT architecture running smoothly becomes unmanageable with traditional development methods. Until ten years ago, companies could perform quarterly or annual updates and remain competitive. Today, market needs and technologies evolve so quickly that the solutions developed are quickly obsolete.
In addition, companies are struggling to hire, as they currently face a shortage of skilled labor to meet the workload. These difficulties, although already existing before 2020, have only been accentuated with the pandemic which has accelerated the adoption of technologies.
Low-code platforms help solve these problems by allowing employees who don’t have very technical knowledge to collaborate on developing solutions. Indeed, the development of low-code applications makes it possible to quickly deploy small targeted technical changes within a company. But beyond the speed that low-code platforms offer, they also offer a new approach to development.
Traditional development typically required months of research and lots of coding. As the name suggests, low-code requires very little coding knowledge, which makes development both intuitive and accessible to the uninitiated. Development thus moves from a function exclusively performed by IT to a decentralized function distributed among the business units.
IT teams are already starting to see changes brought about by digital transformation. In fact, according to a recent study on the Future of IT, 62% of respondents said they have already noticed a decentralization of digital transformation responsibilities in their company in recent years.
The Changing Dynamics of IT Professionals
As coding evolves with low-code solutions, the role of an IT developer also changes. First, technical skills, such as data management and coding knowledge, will become less essential. Instead, IT professionals will focus on managing infrastructure and people, as they will maintain control of digital transformation while distributing routine work among collaborators. Therefore, some soft skills that were not required for IT roles will gain in importance.
However, the skills required depend on factors such as the size and workload of IT teams, the management structure, and the speed of development needed to stay competitive in the industry. It is therefore entirely possible for IT teams to establish their own methodology and manage their development processes thanks to low-code.
Additionally, with this technology IT teams will have more time to collaborate with other departments and focus on business operations innovation.
The changing role of IT in business decisions
Even as technology continues to evolve, IT teams will remain essential and the need for specialized skills will never go away. However, by empowering employees to meet smaller needs with low-code, IT managers can spend more time on more important strategic initiatives.
This shift in focus could have a significant impact on decision-making. We are already seeing the emergence of the role of Technical Director or Director of IT Services. Thus, technical and commercial operations will become more intertwined as technology evolves.
Low-code is already impacting business agility and shaping the future of computing. The latest technological innovations will again revolutionize the role of IT and the development of applications will be decentralized, in order to allow specialists to be creative and develop leadership skills. But despite the pressure to adapt to these changes, many IT managers hope their role will become more enjoyable in the years to come.