Operations Developer: A Job Position or a Job-To-Be-Done?

[mbarba]

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Do you have a specific person on your team or person that you outsource to that is in charge of being an operations developer? Or, is operations development more of a "Job To Be Done" (JTBD) that gets handed off to different people, depending on the use case?

I've found that sometimes, operations development is more of a JTBD rather than a specific job position. This JTBD can get outsourced, passed off to IT or a senior backend developer, or done by a junior developer or marketer who has picked up enough coding skills.

One thing I've noticed that makes a defining difference on that, however, is the size of one's company. For example, at a large organization, it would likely be someone’s sole job and someone who is more technical. At a smaller organization, these tasks may just remain JTBD's; they get shared among several people and picked up by those with less technical aptitude.

In that way, operations developers can exist on a spectrum, with one side having a more strategic, business, and/or marketing capacity and the other side having a more technical capacity. Depending on where a person lies on this spectrum, they will have different skill sets, goals, challenges, and journeys in using a new platform or technology.

How is operations development handled at your company?

[ssrussy]

We consider operations development a "job to be done" in the sense that each team member documents certain processes they create or learn to improve and handles all of the back-end work, including creating workflows, etc. The Operations Manager and I are closely connected in my role as RevOps Coordinator. We aim to ensure all of our tech stack tools are working efficiently, finding and fixing problems with existing processes, and documenting all updates in our internal knowledge base to ensure everyone remains up-to-date. In doing so, we align all of our company's departments towards a shared goal of increasing revenue rather than focusing on their own KPIs.

[mbarba]

This is so insightful, @ssrussy! Thank you for sharing!

[mbarba]

Hi @SajeelQureshi this is so insightful! I agree that this seems to be more of a job-to-be-done at the current moment. It seems it could be that way. However, I do think there may be potential in the future, as you said, for a more dedicated Ops Developer to exist. Thank you so much for sharing!

[SajeelQureshi]

Hi @mbarba sounds like a backend developer.  Obviously they should be working with someone on the 'operations' team at a company since the 'Operations Manager' or someone like that is working with a developer to streamline different processes.  At Computan we call these team members backend developers. Much in the same way we wouldn't call someone who codes landing pages and websites using front-end languages a 'marketing developer.' Maybe getting more specific though is the way of the future.

[mbarba]

Hi @John! Great question. I would say that an operations developer would be someone who, in general, builds integrations and workflows, sets up scripts for automation, and creates custom-coded actions and other serverless functions. In light of that, how are operations handled at your company?

[John]

@mbarba This is a great question – I think it would be helpful for the community to know how you define the job description of an "operations developer" – or at least general operations tasks