Position: Camunda Dev (Consultant) - retraining Java Devs
Company: ai4process
Experience required: 1y
English level: upper

What is a Camunda Dev or Camunda Consultant career?


Q1 - Firstly what is Camunda?

Camunda BPM Platform is an open source BPM Framework or process orchestrator.   It is used to align data and communication between complex business systems to automate the workflows typically found in a all companies.  Camunda solves and automates practical business challenges in very short timeframe giving clear and verifiable profits to the company. So if you can imagine Camunda is like a symphony conductor which is making sure all of the individual instruments play together to create a symphony. The main goal is to save time, eliminate unnecessary process steps and automate manual procedures using technology. Camunda also uses technology to do things in an innovative way compared to traditional methods due to the open source nature and highly configurable nature of the framework. So Dev’s have a chance to use their creativity to the fullest extent. The framework also allows for rapid changes to implanted solutions- so nothing is “hard wired” and can be optimized. 
Camunda was founded in 2008 as a BPM consultancy and later in 2013 released Camunda BPM as an open source framework.  As an open source framework it has gained popularity and a rapid user base with 10 000+ companies worldwide using the framework.   Camunda repository on Github is here
https://github.com/camunda/camunda-bpm-platform   
Each year there are more dev’s learning the framework and the adoption rate by companies is accelerating resulting in Camunda getting an additional 82M US Euro Series B funding in 2021, this enabling the release of Camunda 8 and secured its long term future. 


Q2 - Why are more Java Dev’s starting to use the Camunda Platform and getting certified?

 In the past 3 years the number of Java dev’s using Camunda framework has rapidly increased as there is already growing demand worldwide from customer side for Camunda experts,  also Java dev’s start to look for better paying and more business orientated roles to become system architects instead of just Java dev’s or full stack dev’s.  We could say for a normal Java dev the market is nearing saturation due to the large number of people learning to program in Java or adopting Kotlin or other languages.  Camunda opens a long term and exciting career path for a Java dev into a business architect consulting role.
Camunda version 8 launched this year in is the largest release in recent years and improves the speed and scalability of the platform.   The new architecture ensures Camunda growth for next 10+ years as the architecture meets the current transaction speeds and future needs. This gives Dev’s confidence to invest their time learning the framework to ensure a long term revenue and self development strategy.


Q3 - What technology do I need to use Camunda framework?

The ideal basic skills you need are Java, Angular, BPMN, Spring boot, REST, SQL or Oracle or MongoDB, Apache, ability to design API’s, Agile.
However Java, Angular and BPMN are key components and due to open source nature many other skills fit the role.  BPMN may be new to many Java dev’s but this is really a 1-2 day course to understand.  BPMN methodology and tool is essential due to fact it enables Dev’s to discuss with Product owners, business owners in a simple and easily understood methodology. Due to rapid development cycles and microjourneys,  Agile and Scrum work best during implementation. 
English language is really important as you will be dealing with people from across the world, other languages such as German, Italian, Spanish, French etc are also very good to have.
It is also good to be able to communicate well in a team and also with business stakeholders – BPMN methodology really helps with this.


Q4 - So what does a Camunda BPM career mean?

This is interesting – Most Java dev’s want to make a single program whether it’s a game, tool, business utility, app or other user program which involves a team for 6 months to 3 years.  At the end of the cycle the end product is tested and released to market and either fails or is a success. Due to huge mass of dev studio’s now unfortunately many programs fail in the real market and disappear.	With Camunda you orchestrate the workflows and processes between all these “programs”.  The effect of your work is visible within 1-2 months with real business benefits for the company or client. So Camunda dev’s are highly appreciated in any company.  So end of day the feeling of satisfaction is greater because the end effect actually helped.  Also each BPM implementation allows you to learn a wide range of systems and learn business system architecture relatively quickly.  The projects can be from even 1 month for a microjourney to 5 years as new “business cases” are identified and solved. So a person starts solving “micro cases” then as an experienced BPM consultant you design the orchestration of complex business systems running entire corporations.  It is a long term career which requires continual learning, experimentation and creativity to solve many challenges.	


Q5 - What do the earnings look like?

Earnings are directly linked to experience. The easiest start is a Java dev with 1-3 years experience moving to career as Java Dev in BPM.   Initially the salary is similar but after 2 years the salary growth is faster and reaches higher than a Java dev.  As a person reaches Principle business architect level after around 10 years the annual salaries are in 6 digits US$. For Java full stack developer with 5+ years experience  it is more challenging as its starting an new career path, initially salary may be lower but within 2-3 years it will be similar or more. However Java full stack dev’s move to BPM consultant career for other reasons such as new challenges and to learn more about business side of software development, business structure, need to learn new technologies etc.


Q7 - Who Uses Camunda today

Traditionally the fortune 500 companies and government agencies use BPM Architectures from proprietery systems such as IBM, Oracle or Pega. The cost of these system licensing and implementation is often prohibitive for corporations with less than 5B US$ annual revenue.   The strong point about Camunda is that it is open source and free for smaller implementations and dev work. For mid size and larger corporations there are licensed architectures with some powerful additional features so actually small companies as well as large corporations can use the platform.  The subscription model makes it accessible to all and its highly scalable.  This is important for Dev’s as the customer base and work opportunities are really wide and deep – depending if you like to work for larger corporations or smaller companies. Some startups even apply Camunda at early stages to fuel their growth.
In general any company with more than 10 or more software systems in use can benefit from Camunda BPM. Typically corporations have more than 200 individual softwares or app’s in use at any time for a huge range of tasks, with the largest corporations having more than 500 systems in place. This number has grown over 100% since 2015. This creates a huge drive for Camunda and other BPM architectures.


Q6 - How do I start?

At ai4process we are an official Camunda partner, we as a company specialize in BPM and have an accelerated learning program for Camunda using a mix of materials from the official Camunda Academy as well as our own implementation knowledge.  The initial training covers BPMN and Camunda components, then you are challenged with a real-life test system to check your progress and then moved directly onto client work. Send your CV if you are interested.