Camunda Community Podcast

A Developer-friendly Citizen Developer, They *DO* Exist: “I do not implement code. I like low-code”

• Camunda Community Podcast • Season 5 • Episode 4

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Developer-friendliness is at our core and developer-friendly process orchestration is our passion. We believe pro-code concepts are absolutely essential to addressing the complexity of real-world automation. That is why we are combining pro-code capabilities with the ability to encapsulate code into reusable modules that we call “low-code accelerators.” These shortcuts are meant to benefit both technical and non-technical users. 

In this episode, we will follow along the journey of one citizen developer as she learned how to develop executable processes. Listen as Senior Technical Community Builder Mia Moore chats with Community Manager Maria Alcantara about her role here at Camunda, what inspired her to gain more technical process automation skills, and how this experience has enabled her to better collaborate with technical users like IT and software developers, provide feedback based on her experience, and grow in confidence. Mia and Maria also discuss their favorite Camunda 8 features as well as tips and resources for learning more about BPMN, DMN, and Camunda–spoiler alert: our Community is one of them. 


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Camunda enables organizations to orchestrate processes across people, systems, and devices to continuously overcome complexity and increase efficiency. A common visual language enables seamless collaboration between business and IT teams to design, automate, and improve end-to-end processes with the required speed, scale, and resilience to remain competitive. Hundreds of enterprises such as Atlassian, ING, and Vodafone orchestrate business-critical processes with Camunda to accelerate digital transformation.

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[MARIA ALCANTARA] I am more in tune with their needs and their pains because now I've experienced it right? And I'm very proud that I've used phrases like, “But it was working yesterday.”

[MIA MOORE] Or “It works on my machine.” 

[MARIA] Exactly

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[NIALL DEEHAN] Hello, I’m Niall - Senior Developer Advocate with Camunda. Welcome to the Camunda Community Podcast, where you’ll learn all sorts of things about Camunda, BPMN, DMN, and, of course, other general orchestration topics that we tend to ramble our way through. 

Now, today, I have two folks who I thoroughly enjoy the company of. First, we’ll have Mia–they were very kind enough to take over some podcast duties the last little while so you’ll probably recognize their voice. They are a Senior Technical Community Builder here with Camunda. 

Talking to them is another one of our teammates, which is Maria. Maria is a community manager and working on my team. Now, Maria has worked for us for a little while and does all sorts of stuff involving the community. 

Our software is very developer-focused and Maria, not being a developer herself, hasn’t been able to fully embrace what our software really does. 

So, in the last year and a half or so, we’ve added a whole bunch of features that are intended to make it very easy for a kind of persona called citizen developer to be able to use. Now the idea here is people who are not technical should be able to build executable processes to do things that are, let’s say, relatively complicated. 

Maria decided to put that to the test and Maria actually really wanted to start learning how to become a process developer. 

And Mia is going to be speaking to her about that process. 

One of the things I particularly like about the inspiration Maria had is from working on the Camunda Educational License Program together with me. So we speak to university lecturers and students about using and learning Camunda. And it’s nice to hear that not only have we been able to inspire students with building processes with Camunda but also Maria herself.

I’ll be back at the end of this podcast for a little catch-up and final chat. I’ll talk to you then. 

Let’s get started. 

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[MIA MOORE] Today, I am talking to Maria Alcantara, who is our community manager at Camunda, and she's actually on the DevRel team with me. So I get to work with her pretty much every day. Hi, Maria! It's so good to have you on.

[MARIA ALCANTARA] Hi, I'm very happy to be here.

[MIA] Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about your role and what you do at Camunda?

[MARIA]  Of course. As you said, I'm a community manager here at Camunda and some of my main goals through this role is to enable empower and celebrate our community through some of the different community programs that we have in place.

We have, for example, the meetup program, which is an international program of hosts that organize meet-ups all around the world. And they can be online, in person, and hybrid. So there's really almost something for everyone in every continent. I think we have. Yeah, we have meetups in every continent, 

[MIA] Except Antarctica?

[MARIA] Except Antarctica, yes, and we and they host meetups in around 10, 10 different languages. It's true that many of them are in English, but there's also Spanish and Portuguese, and of course, German. So it's really a huge program. I was just coming from the first African Meetup held in Pretoria, online. 

[MIA] That's so exciting. 

[MARIA] Yeah. 40 people online. Very exciting. It was great. So that's one of the programs that we have. 

[MARIA] We also have the Educational License Program, which is one of my absolute favorites, because we get to give enterprise licenses to universities and also to students. And it's a great way to empower those who you know, are beginning their journey on BPMN so I love that program. We receive tons of applications every week.

[MIA] That's the best kind of program is when you get to give people things that you know they're very happy with you about that. You're not saying, "No, I can't give that to you."

[MARIA] Exactly. Exactly. That's a that's a very, you know–yeah, it’s a very warm and fuzzy feeling, when we when we get to do that.

And lastly, the Champion Program, which is a program designed to celebrate some of our most passionate community members who just give back so much in the form of code, Forum answers, organizing events, speaking about Camunda as well, and just being really, really outspoken, passionate, and giving.

And, in fact, we are just about to announce the cohort, fifth cohort. So stay tuned. I think maybe when this comes out we have already announced them. Maybe not, but very soon.

[MIA] If it's already out, we'll add it in the show notes, and if not, keep an eye out for that. 

[MARIA] Exactly. So that's what I do.

[MIA] To summarize, I think what you do is you work with our community members at different levels. So our champions, our meetup organizers–that's a really passionate group. But then also with our college audience, our university program. So you get users at all different kinds of levels, right? You get like the beginning users who are learning in school. You get people who are really passionate and organizing the meetups. But then, if you go to a meetup, you might meet other people who are, you know, maybe not as advanced yet.

How does that relate to your own experience? Working with Camunda as a product.

[MARIA] Well, to be honest, I started as a–I wouldn't even say even a citizen developer. I was not even there. I was rather just going around my merry way, driving these programs until I joined the Educational License Program. And I wanted to be more active during our sessions with the university teachers, right? And I wanted to be able to demo some of the features in Camunda. So that's when I decided to actually implement things. Because in the past, it’s true that I've modeled some of the processes of the meet-up program, but more in a, in a documenting kind of way, but not really implementing anything right or deploying it–nothing of that sort.

I wanted to really be able to interact with this community.

So I slowly, very slowly, at the beginning of this year, I started to morph into your, you know, regular citizen developer. I do not implement code. I like low code. I like intuitive UIs. So that's how like I slipped into the Citizen Developer role.

[MIA] I like that you describe it as slipping in. You're like, “Oh, nobody look. I'm just gonna sneak over here and model a process.” Yeah.

[MARIA] Yeah, exactly. I wasn't even intending it. But okay, I think I can try this. I think I can do this

[MIA] Well. And one thing I really like from a non-technical perspective about Camunda is you can very quickly understand what the models are portraying. Even if you don't necessarily know how to create one yourself or make it functional in terms of actually deploying it, you can look at a model and have a general idea of what it's trying to tell you. And I think that's really handy for communicating between people who are more technical and people who are less technical, or even just using it, like you said to model a process and make sure that you have all the pieces in place.

So you know, it's interesting hearing, “Okay, I started at this part where I was able to model the process, and that was helpful enough, and then it got to a point where I was like, 'You know what? I wanna dive a little deeper. I wanna be able to do a little bit more,'” and, you know, have that experience for the people you're working with, the community members that you're working with and making sure you can demo the features to them.

[MARIA] Hmm, yeah, correct. And it just has helped me in so many ways right? Not only to have more meaningful conversations with the not only with the CELP members, but also with all the other community members, right? From all these different programs that you mentioned, from different technical levels and technical backgrounds or not, right? And it's also because I am more in tune with their needs and their pains because now I've experienced it right, and I'm very proud that I've used phrases like, “But it was working yesterday.”

[MIA] Or “It works on my machine.” 

[MARIA] Or “It was working on my machine.” 

[MIA] Yes, that’s when you know you’re a real developer. Yes. That's like the badge of honor is you start realizing why those are tropes, why they're stereotypes is because, oh, it happened to me today.

[MARIA] Yeah, it’s awesome.

[MIA] So how does having that hands-on experience change how you interact either with the DevRel team or other teams internally, or all the community members that you work with? Like, obviously, it's helped you with CELP users and being able to demo to them. But what about champions? Or maybe forum interactions? Just any other way that you interact with the community.

[MARIA] I feel more confident in the conversations I am in, right? Nothing sounds so foreign as two years ago, when I joined Camunda. Right? So that is one thing and the other one is being more self-sufficient, right? I, obviously, I lean a lot on developer advocates, in you, but I am able to navigate some conversations more confidently, and that feels great to be honest. 

[MIA] Absolutely because you feel a little bit more independent. And a little bit more able to answer the harder questions. Because like, there's like the tier one–I can answer those easy questions. Oh, is it in the docs? Okay, I can, I can link you to a Docs page. But once we get past that, it's like, I don't know. 

[MARIA] Exactly, and also being able to actually demo some of the low-code possibilities of Camunda, right? I can do that by my own, very confidently build up process, talk while building it, which is a massive– I think it's not praised enough. 

[MIA] Yeah, that's an accomplishment being able to do any sort of demo while you're talking about doing it. 

[MARIA] Yes. yeah. So my recognition to all the developers or non-developers out there that are able to demo something while explaining it at the same time, while being live and having fun and making jokes. So, yeah.

[MIA] Yeah, that's that's impressive. Kudos to you, and that is definitely very different than what you were describing your first experience as, “Oh, I did this model, and I'm, I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna even tell anyone I'm just gonna hide it over here.”

[MARIA] I think it's also giving feedback to our teams. Now I'm able to think, "Hmm! Wouldn't it be nice if I could do this or why can't I not? Why I cannot do this?" And being able to share that feedback with, also with confidence, because I've used it. It feels really great to be able to contribute also on that way to the, to the tool. Right?

[MIA] Yeah, totally. And I think that's a perspective that that we need more feedback from is because I know when I feel like I'm out of my technical realm and I'm out of the what I know, I get nervous about providing feedback because it's like, well, maybe this is something that is super standard, and I just don't know it. So, being familiar enough with the tool that you feel confident in that feedback is really important.

[MIA]  What was the most surprising thing you learned along the way?

[MARIA] I was surprised at how fast I could go from not knowing really anything to being able to build something, right? That is one thing–this initial learning curve to be able to model, understand what I was modeling, and then implementing something with low code was actually faster than I thought, to be honest. And that's something that C8 does very, very well, right? 

Another thing that I love is the collaboration features. They are some of my favorite–also because it's some of the ones I get to demo the most with educational licenses. But it's also very handy when you need to collaborate amongst functions, right? About business owners, among developers, product owners. What I love about Camunda is that it's all in one– it’s the documentation, and it's implementation, all in a single place.

It's a single source of truth, right? Well, if you have it, maybe in a list of steps that they are outdated within, you know, 5 minutes. But here it's always up to date, and everyone knows exactly what's happening.

And I think I'm also surprised at the speed in which improvements occur between releases.  Right now, there are so many awesome features coming out from one release to the other, that is like, “Okay, let's see what what's new.” And I-I didn't realize it felt like that before.

[MIA] Yeah, yeah, I think our our C8 releases, it feels like we're releasing major features all the time. As of recording,  we just released 8.3. And there's multi-tenancy.

[MARIA] There’s also pop-outs like where you write the FEEL expressions you have. Before, it was just a single line, impossible to read. And now you can pop it up, and there's a very nice big space where you can actually see what you're writing. Thank you. 

[MIA] Yeah. It feels like there's so many improvements being made all the time, and so many big features being added that it's kind of exciting to pop in and see, okay, what's changed. What's new, like? You're kind of part of something that's still developing. It's already usable. It's already great. But every time there's new features which is awesome. 

[MARIA] Exactly

[MIA] So I think a lot of listeners of the podcast are going to be more technical users of Camunda, which makes sense to me. And I feel like the low code use case is sort of a newer one that we're focusing on. And so what I really wanna know is what advice would you give to technical users for working with low code users, and also why they should be working with low code users? Why should you involve people that aren't, you know, engineers or people on your team that are more technical in the actual process of modeling in BPMN?

[MARIA] That's an excellent question. And one of the first things I will say is be patient with us. Okay. I said user interfaces are great. It's very intuitive, but there is a slight learning curve. Right? So just be patient with us. Bear with us, and we know you know a lot. I mean, Camunda is such a powerful tool, that all the expertise that you have is, is huge, right? So my request would be break it down to what we citizen developers really need to know. 

You know, there are tons of variables when you are working with connectors, for example. Huh! You can edit them so that only the relevant variables are there. So tell us, “You know what this is not relevant for. You don't worry about this. This is the things that you need to to focus on.” Especially when you're trying to teach us or explain something to us. Just strip it down to the bare minimum, to the really must-know information, and let us do it. We know you can do it like in the light speed. Right? Let us do it, even if it takes some time we'll get there. We will and will know how to drag and drop, we’ll know how to edit, how to configure. Just let us do it right, hands-on. There's nothing like hands-on experience. 

And then the second part of your question is, why should these two personas interact, right? And work together?

Well, because again, I think in the world that we live in. Most of us are citizen developers, even if we don't know it, right? We're continuously configuring our phones, doing upgrades, changing settings. It's something that we do all the time in our personal lives. So it's just about this integration also with the work, with work life. 

And the other thing is most of the time, citizen developers or business owners have a different view of the process, right? They might have the view towards clients towards the end users. So ultimately they will be also your link to user feedback, to the user experience which will shape the product right? So, or the process itself. I mean, you might have a super fancy way of modeling something, but it might not be what's actually happening in reality, or it might not be the happy path. And sometimes these other roles are the ones that have the visibility to that. So it's about finding the symbiosis. Right?

[MIA] Yeah, absolutely. And I think, having the ability to look at the same information and understand it the same way, makes sure that that communication is happening right? So being able to have someone who doesn't understand BPMN at all, know enough to know what a process is and what it's trying to convey. You can say, “Oh, wait! That's not how that works at all. Or this needs to connect to this piece or whatever.” So yeah, I think the communication aspect can't be underrated. But I like, too, that you brought up. It's not just being able to communicate the process itself, but also get feedback on the process and on how it impacts the end users.

At Camunda, we're fully global. We're fully remote. And being able to have good collaboration tools is such a big part of that type of, that type of success. Because we don't go into the office, so we can't just be like, “Oh, actually, I just walked by and noticed the thing that you're doing is completely off from what I was trying to describe.” So we need, we need good tools to make sure that we we can have the results that we're all expecting instead of having that miscommunication gap.

[MIA] On the other side: what advice would you give to other citizen developers, other low code users?

[MARIA] Well, first of all, don't be afraid. Try it out. Nothing will happen.

[MIA] Easier said than done.

[MARIA] It's true, and it took me some time to go from just modeling to something else. But really, don't be afraid. There are great resources out there created by Camunda, but also by the community. So we have, you know, tutorials created in Spanish, in Portuguese, in so many languages that I'm sure you can find something that will help you in that learning journey.

And that is one aspect, right,  the official kind of documentation. But you, you also have other tools created also by the community to grasp some of the key aspects of BPMN. And in this case, it's FEEL, right? The Friendly Enough Expression Language which was originally intended to be used as, yes, a communication standard between designers and business people or citizen developers, right? And it was done specifically for DMN, so for tables. But because it's such a powerful language, Camunda uses it also in the models.

So for me, I think, understanding how FEEL works was a game-changer, because I could actually create the logic for the model to actually work.

And to do that, there's a FEEL playground created by yeah, Camundi. It's, I think, also by community members. It's out there, and it just allows you to learn and get familiar with FEEL directly on your browser.

[MIA] So FEEL playground allows you to test out your FEEL expression before you put it in your model. And it will tell you, you know, if your syntax is wrong, or if a part of it needs to be corrected, and I find that easier than putting it into the model, and then trying to figure out what part of it is wrong. That's what has been useful for me.

[MARIA] And I think. Lastly, I would say, trust your intuition when it comes to interacting with the tool. As I said, the interface is user-friendly, and it started with a lot of helping points from the help center itself to linting and tons of different ways of in detecting problems, both from the modeling part and implementation side, and they come with suggestions on where you might be going wrong., links to other documentation, links to other resources. So you're not just thrown in the wild and you are completely lost. No. There are tons of resources available.

[MIA] Yeah. And I will say, our community members are so friendly. Everyone I've met is so excited when people are trying to learn more they are encouraging, and they want to help. So you know whether it's just finding someone that is like, “Yeah, I'll, I'll mentor you,” maybe at your company or in your local community or finding a way to post your model on the Forum and say, “Hey, something's going wrong. Can someone help?” Like we have a great community for that sort of thing.

[MARIA] Absolutely.

[MIA] And I also wanted to mention Camunda Academy, which is our official learning portal. So we have quite a few courses on there from like BPMN and modeling all the way through how to use Camunda 8 for specific things so that could also be a good resource to start out with. But, like like you said, we have so many community resources in so many different languages. So if English isn't your first language, or you're not finding that Camunda Academy has the right tone for you. There are plenty of other ways to learn, too.

[MARIA] Yeah. And nothing beats hands-on experience. So get that model on the canvas and mess it up. Make it crash. Play with it. That's the only way really to learn.

[MIA] Yeah, get a little bit messy

[MIA] So what is next for you on your learning journey?

[MARIA] What is next is to go from this very small demo sessions with teachers to actually demoing something at a meetup. So during November, Niall and myself will be traveling around India, visiting our lovely community in Delhi, Pune, and Bengaluru.

We're going to have in-person events there, and I'm gonna be demoing live all these lovely low code features–in tandem, obviously with Niall. And we're gonna have laughs. We're gonna have banter. We're gonna have fun. I'm pretty sure about that.

So that's what's next–like putting it and putting these new capabilities in use in a different, in a completely different scenario for a completely different audience for different purposes. Right?

[MIA] Yeah, that's so exciting. And I'm so excited for your India tour. I mean, that's so fun. I think it's gonna be really great for the community. And you know, it's always a treat when you're able to go to an event in person like that, so that'll be a delight. I can't wait to hear all about your adventures.

[MARIA] We'll post about them. 

[MIA] Yeah, you better you're you have to. 

[MARIA] I think so. 

[MIA] You're legally obligated to now. 

[MIA] Well, awesome. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. Is there anything else you want to shout out before we go like, “Follow me on Linkedin,” or–

[MARIA] Sure, follow me on LinkedIn at Maria Alcantara. Really what I–the shout that I would like to to give is to the community, as a whole. They are just awesome in the way they give and share and contribute with their expertise, but also their time, and with their whole energy. I think Camunda Community has a very special vibe. And we just cannot make that without them. So shout out to them.

[MIA] Aww! That's so, that's so sweet! And it's so true, too. I've always been very impressed with how positive our community is. So thank you to all the community members who helped us get this far.

[MARIA]  Oh, one more. Sorry!

[MIA] Oh yes, go for it. 

[MARIA] Yes, shout out to the developer advocates who had the patience with me, to sit down and teach me to feel confident about this and to play around with it. Shout out to them for being patient.

[MIA] Yes, again, being patient–big part of it when you know more than someone else knows.

[MIA]  Well, thank you so much.

[MARIA] Thank you.

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[NIALL DEEHAN] Thank you very very much to Mia and Maria. I really enjoyed that chat. I think as somebody who kind of got to know Camunda as a 4 MB JAR that I would like import into my Spring Boot applications, it’s really nice to see somebody come to the same sort of place from a different direction completely–really really worth listening to. 

And I’m sure many more people are going to be getting involved in Camunda through the citizen developer angle. 

I’m looking forward to seeing how we get on. 

One thing I actually wanted to mention which is really important. For those of you who are developers who are listening to this – software developers and you know very serious folk we are–use that FEEL Playground. It is fantastic fun! You get to put a JSON object in there, type a FEEL expression, and then just see what the result might be. It’s really handy.

So Maria giving great advice to us fellow developers. Yeah, everyone really should use that. So thanks a lot.

And of course, hopefully, we’ll get another podcast after this India trip that Maria mentioned. And, if I don’t come back in one piece or you don't hear from me again, you do have Maria’s LinkedIn address so please do arrive there and ask for my safe return if that doesn’t happen.

Until then, please subscribe and continue listening to more Camunda, orchestration, FEEL, and DMN stuff with me. I’ve been Niall the whole time. Bye-bye. 


















[MARIA] [laughter] I’ve been winging it the whole time. [laughter]