What is a K2 Developer?
The traits and skills that define who they are.
This blog post is intended to help guide the recruiter, the hiring manager, or the would-be candidate in determining whether the role is a match because nothing seems more abstract than a job description for a “K2 Developer”.
The demand for K2 developers is increasing. I keep reading posts online looking to fill roles. I have clients in a similar situation who have asked me, “Where do you find K2 developers?”
My honest answer is that in recent years, I have been growing my own. Identifying individuals whose background, experience, and interests would make them proficient K2 developers. Having worked with K2 for over 18 years, training hundreds of aspiring developers and enabling countless K2 partners, I’ve seen a pattern emerge.
What does that mean exactly? If you read the job descriptions, they vary wildly. Most of the time, they appear to be for a SharePoint, C#, Dynamics CRM, or other role to which K2 is an additional duty assigned.
The TLDR
Full Stack Developer + Solution Architect + Data Architect + Someone who enjoys calculating the Fibonacci sequence for fun.
Intrigued? Let me define who a K2 developer is and provide some much-needed context.
The Hard Skills
A K2 developer has the technical skills of a full-stack developer, the mind of a Solution Architect, and the analytical skills of a Data Architect, or some combination of the three. Having a portion of all three makes a candidate more successful.
For context, a K2 solution consists of SmartForms (UI), Workflow (business logic), and SmartObjects (data/integrations), which can be used as is, or there is room for customization where technical skills like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C#, and SQL can be helpful, but are not required.
These skill sets are needed to build a robust and successful K2 solution. Just because they aren’t writing code doesn’t mean a K2 developer doesn’t need to understand how a solution is assembled and be able to envision the larger picture.
K2 as a platform encompasses UI, business logic, services, and data. A full-stack developer will have experience layering all these components together. The specific tool stack does not matter to K2; what matters more is the experience.
K2 solutions aren’t built in isolation. They are generally used to orchestrate larger, multisystem spanning processes. A K2 developer does not need to be an expert in those other systems, but they do need to understand their solution’s role, how that information must flow, and how those pieces all fit together.
In a K2 solution, data is vital. Being able to understand what data is needed and how it mutates during the life of the solution. Data is foundational. K2’s SmartObjects are the connecting thread that weaves through all levels of the application, and bad data design is a crack in that foundation.
Don’t panic. These traits are those of the ideal candidate, and we know unicorns are rare. If you must choose, go with a full-stack developer background. They will be better positioned to understand how to build in a K2 world and support that candidate with other members of your team who can help fill in the gaps.
However, if you choose to backfill with a shared solution and/or a data architect, be sure they complete K2 training to understand the platform’s constraints.
The more critical traits are those that cannot be taught.
The Soft Skills
What I have found to be more critical than technical skills are the personality traits. I can pretty much train anyone with the right level of technical background, but are they open to the challenge?
The question is less “what” is a K2 developer and more “who” is a K2 developer?
Someone inquisitive, enjoys a challenge, imaginative, methodical, and malleable.
Malleable may seem like a strange adjective to use, but it was the nicest I could come up with. There is an intrinsic openness that a candidate needs to succeed with K2. I have been in many enterprises, and there is always at least one developer who sits in the training, crosses their arms, and utters the age-old phrase, “I could write it faster in code.”
There is a whole philosophical discussion that could erupt around this sentiment, but a candidate with that sort of mentality won’t be successful.
To put it simply, the ideal candidate needs to be open to working with K2, accept the constraints, and find joy in exploring all the possibilities.
A great interview question, or a variation on it, is to ask them for their thoughts on Lego. Lego is my go-to analogy for describing to someone what it is like to work with K2. They both require the builder to work within the constraints of the medium, follow detailed instructions, and use only the materials provided in an approved way. A Lego Master Builder and a K2 Master have very similar, if not the same, personality profiles.
Working with K2 can be fun. I personally enjoy the game of it. I long ago accepted the challenge of working within the constraints of the K2 platform. I look for that same openness to the challenge in others.
The ideal candidate should also be methodical. K2 solutions require an individual who is organized and detail-oriented to create orderly solutions and follow the flow of logic, someone who understands that there is a happy path and an exception path, where there is an if, there is an implied else. A very analytical mind that enjoys the challenge of solving for the unknown, i.e., the Fibonacci sequence. I find that former support engineers generally have the potential to make strong K2 developers.
This not only helps them develop solid solutions but also aids debugging when trying to understand why an empty row is being inserted into the database on file add. There is a story here, maybe I’ll share it sometime if I write about troubleshooting.
Finally, just going through the K2 training alone does not make a K2 developer, just as reading a recipe does not make a Michelin-rated chef. It is the first step on a journey of discovery. Much like Sudoku. Moments to learn, a lifetime to master. Maybe not a lifetime, but there is some work on the part of the would-be developer to go from the knowledge to practical application: the science vs. the art.
I hope this helps you better define who you are looking for in your next hire. I always welcome questions. Please feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line at info@caseitsolutions.com.