Day in the life of a Pega developer
Find out what it's like to work as a Pega developer in the Australian Public Service.
We share an APS member's thoughts what it is like to be a Pega developer.
What I do
As a Pega developer I spend most of my time creating applications and supporting the application environment. These applications help my business colleagues deliver better services to the public. The systems that I support help to enforce the country's various quarantine, customs, and immigration and finance laws.
The Pega environment is a low-code platform that allows developers like me to create intricate business solutions quickly. It provides instant visual responses to changes I make in the code, which really helps to confirm the code I create is doing what I intended.
Connecting with business
The Pega environment has in-built tools and processes that enable seamless communication between developers and business analysts, like the Pega App Studio methodology. This helps avoid gaps and misunderstandings in the application development process, to ensure we deliver what our business users really need.
My job is made easier by a feature in Pega that allows business users to make low risk ‘instant fix’ changes to the business rules we have setup for them. This ‘Production ruleset’ feature allows us to delegate certain business rules to business users, which frees up developers, like me, to do more valuable development tasks.
The Pega platform is continually evolving and updating, with new and useful developer and user-friendly features being added all the time. It’s a great platform to work in. It also includes career support with intuitive and comprehensive training courses provided by the Pega Academy.
I’m always learning new things
As a Pega developer, I am always learning new things. Whether it is new features and tools in the Pega environment itself, or new approaches to solving business problems. It is a different way to create solutions for our business and I enjoy the challenge it provides. It’s not like traditional programming or software development.
I’m regularly inspired by work colleagues and senior Pega consultants, and what I learn from the Pega Academy and the Pega Collaboration Centre (which is a community of practice for Pega developers) is just invaluable.
I love directly helping my business colleagues
I get a lot of satisfaction from creating new applications, or enhancing exiting applications, very quickly so our end users can get on with their job. It’s a much better outcome for them compared to traditional hand-coded technology approaches.
Our business colleagues love it too, as they have visibility of what’s going on and are more involved in the development process, instead of the solution being a ‘black box’ until a final product release.
The rule delegation feature in Pega enables business to make some business data changes without need for the technical team’s involvement. This capability speeds up the process and allows the business to be more in control of their own destiny when it comes to managing low risk changes.
All views expressed are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily reflect the view of the department or agency.