How to Launch a Career in RPA: Growth Opportunities for RPA Developers

July 15, 2021/ ~ 7 minutes read

Introduction

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that is driving enterprise-level innovation. It helps enhance productivity in many ways by taking the burden off employees from tedious and repetitive jobs and increasing job satisfaction resulting in an engaged workforce. This technology enables processes to be performed more quickly and precisely than humans without any interruptions.

Sooner or later, many firms from multiple sectors have turned to Robotic Process Automation, which means an increase in the volume of RPA jobs. Among the highly sought-after skills is RPA development. If you want to know whether it is a good idea to make an RPA developer career path, this article is for you.

We will explain in detail why you should choose to become an RPA developer as we take a closer look at this profession. We will also discuss the key RPA developer responsibilities and skills required and opportunities for future career development. Lastly, we will offer guidance on the best places to start your RPA career.

Who is an RPA Developer?

To put it in simple words, an RPA developer is not a coder, though it is desirable to have basic programming skills to help you master this profession quickly. Behind the RPA development role hides an entire professional career beginning from a junior position to an experienced manager who is involved in formulating and developing best practices for this role and mentoring junior resources.

These professionals are involved in developing object-based configurations to automate business processes that previously required human intervention. For this role, some experience in development or technical configuration is desirable, as sometimes RPA developers need to intervene in the technical side through interfaces.

RPA developers will create, design, develop, and implement RPA systems. They will create process documentation, guide with process design, and also ensure the quality of automation.

Two qualities essential to this role are:

Mathematical logic: Bots make decisions by applying the logic that uses mathematical models defined by RPA developers.
Experience in development/technical configuration: It serves as an excellent basis to start your RPA developer career path. Then you can obviously develop your skillset as you work on different projects.

RPA developers mainly design the workflows that guide the working of bots, so they must have a good understanding of business processes.

Why choose a career in RPA

Currently, the RPA market is recognized as one of the fastest-growing segments in the IT industry. It offers businesses a real competitive advantage with visible results (increase in market share and revenues), cost reductions, and productivity improvement. Despite the economic pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the RPA’s adoption rate has not slowed down, and the RPA software revenues are expected to reach around $2 billion by the end of 2021.

Based on this growth (and adoption rate), the demand for skilled RPA professionals has also increased. So, can we say that it is a good opportunity to make a career move in RPA? Well, considering the supply and demand of RPA professionals, yes, it is.

It is safe to assume that the rate at which companies embrace RPA will not slow down. On the other hand, these firms can’t find enough professionals, especially for RPA jobs. The same is the case with RPA software vendors and service providers.

As Robotic Process Automation moves to the mainstream in several regions, it is also great for professionals with in-demand RPA skills, and their salaries have also increased more than other IT professionals.

As the Robotic Process Automation industry will continue to develop, the demand for RPA developers will inevitably keep on increasing.

RPA developer: key skills and responsibilities

The main responsibilities of an RPA developer include:

To identify and design business processes for automation.
Set up, test, and monitor workflows to reduce the risk or error and make sure that processes function at the ideal efficiency level.
Closely monitor the post-implementation automation to detect and resolve any issues.
Create process documentation to reflect successes and mistakes and to refine future processes.
Execute quality assurance to prevent potential bugs and ensure quality.
Communicate with different audiences, technical or business oriented, to understand the targets of an RPA project, transcribe operational needs, or to ensure proper implementation and integration.

An RPA developer will perform these activities depending on the company’s industry– for external clients or internal automation initiatives.

Among the RPA developer key skills, both hard and soft, are

Proficiency in programming languages – Java, .NET, Python, C, or C++.
Understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) basics.
Knowledge of database query language: SQL
Problem-solving skills.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Attention to detail and an algorithmic and structured way of thinking.
Knowledge of databases–SQL, NoSQL.

Professionals looking to build their RPA skills need to select an RPA platform (for instance, ElectroNeek is a great way to start) to help them understand the underlying technology. They will use the programming language of that specific RPA tool to customize their bots, so your choice of the tool is also important.

Career opportunities in RPA

Technical Solution Architect

To progress in your RPA developer career path, you must enhance your skills specifically in Technical Solution Architecture (TSA- which covers all the technical aspects of the system such as system code design, development technology, and technical infrastructure).

Senior Robotic Process Automation Developer

Apart from technical proficiency, Robotic Process Automation developers need to enhance their managerial skills–clear communication and coordination to accomplish project goals.

A senior Robotic Process Automation developer can advance his career as a technical architect who leads a team of developers and technical professionals. They are also called technical project managers who will be in charge of implementation, offer recommendations, and update the stakeholders regarding potential issues/threats.

How to launch a career in RPA with ElectroNeek

If you are a newbie looking to start your career in RPA, you should get an RPA certification from a leading RPA vendor. You can try Google if you want to learn on your own, to become an RPA pro, we recommend a great resource–the ElectroNeek Academy that offers an interactive learning environment for RPA enthusiasts and RPA certification as a part of it. It provides courses elaborated by leading RPA experts for users from beginner to advanced, even if they have zero coding skills. The modules offer a clear understanding of RPA concepts and principles of using various ElectroNeek products and tools.

Why should you choose ElectroNeek? Because it is an easiest-to-use RPA platform with a low-code/no-code integrated development environment that allows even non-experts to build and deploy their bots.

If you want to step up to an advanced level, we recommend going through these modules that will help you start your first automation project:

Conclusion

In this article, we explained who is an RPA developer and the responsibilities and relevant RPA skills. We took a closer look at the current market situation and if it is the right time to make this career move, and what future opportunities are for RPA developers.

We hope that this article will help RPA professionals and enthusiasts decide on choosing the RPA developer profession. To validate our arguments, let’s take a look at some numbers. The Deloitte Global RPA Survey estimated that 78% of the enterprises that have implemented RPA plan to increase their investment in this technology over the next three years. Therefore, now is the right time to complete your training and apply the learning to build and deploy bots on the ElectroNeek platform.

Dreaming of RPA? Start your journey with ElectroNeek!