Finding Low Code…or Did It Find Me?

Ever run into one of those technologies that snags you immediately? That’s what Low Code recently did for me.

As many regular readers will know, I’ve spent the last several years doing independent consulting and coding, mostly in the .NET and JavaScript world. And I was humming along, with the usual ups and downs that go with being independent, but mostly happy with what I was doing. Then a friend reached out, and mentioned that someone he’d worked with in the past was looking for someone with Microsoft stack architect skills, and would I be interested in talking with him?

I wasn’t looking for anything new. But I thought, can’t hurt to take a call, right? Which is how I was introduced to OutSystems. The initial call was encouraging, so I decided to take the OutSystems platform for a spin, and I was immediately impressed by just how fast I could build a fully-functional application, using just a visual approach of assembling UI and logic widgets, quickly creating and querying data entities, and rapidly publishing new versions in an agile manner.

Finding the Fun Again

My immediate reaction was that it reminded me of some of the best of what I fell in love with when I first started using Visual Basic back in the late ’90s. But without all the code, and with a much more robust publishing and administration infrastructure behind it.

I found that at every turn, from automatically inferring data types for attributes based on the names you give them, to rapidly creating basic list and detail pages by simply pulling a data entity onto a design surface, the tools provided by OutSystems made building apps faster and easier than I was used to…and dare I say it, more fun.

To make a long story short, I decided to continue pursuing the conversation with OutSystems. After a few more calls and interviews, I accepted a role as a Solution Architect. I’ve been in that role for about 6 months now, and nothing I’ve learned in that time has diminished my feeling that Low Code, particularly with OutSystems, is a game-changer for application development. I’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks and months on the whys and hows.

Can’t wait to see what Low Code is all about, and how it works in OutSystems? Check out the OutSystems 2-minute Overview below:

If you’re a passionate technologist, and this has sparked your interest…we’re hiring. Contact me, and I’d be happy to put you in touch with our great recruiting team!