ServiceNow Admin vs. ServiceNow Developer
There’s a lot of confusion in the world of ServiceNow between an Admin and Developer.
I will try to clear that up in this post.
As someone who started out as an Admin 10 years ago and then eventually moved onto a Senior Developer role, I have a few opinions on the migration and how companies should handle both roles. I’ve worked for ServiceNow and a few customers, and I’ve seen varying sizes of ServiceNow teams.
A lot of hiring managers and even professionals in the industry get confused between the 2 names, roles and responsibilities. The ServiceNow Team is a crucial makeup of an IT Department and well defined roles are required for a successful platform. Even looking at job descriptions, you can tell that sometimes they’re written without a true understanding of the differences. The words admin and developer are commingled and incorrectly used. It’s my opinion that almost every team needs at least one ServiceNow Admin and one ServiceNow Developer. Some organizations, need multiple of both roles. There may be an exception of a super small organization requiring fewer resources, but this is certainly the exception.
The eventual goal or evolution of a ServiceNow Admin (if they stick with the platform) would most likely be a move up to the ServiceNow Developer position. The time it takes varies, but anywhere from 2-4 years is a realistic time frame to move from Admin to Developer. It all depends on how motivated the individual is and how much training they’re able to receive. Another option would be to move into more of a Product or Project Manager role. This might be for someone who loves working with the platform and who is very familiar with it, but does not like to perform the day to day activities of actually manually building it out and debugging issues when the arise. A Project manager role in ServiceNow is an excellent option and is an important member of any team.
The ServiceNow Admin
Primarily, a ServiceNow Admin is someone who has a solid understanding of the platform, and how all of the applications and features work. They will focus on administering the platform while leaving the development work to other resources.
An admin has the ability to add fields to a form, update UI Policies and can handle many of the day to day operations. A ServiceNow Admin can view the system logs if an issue were to ever arise, before even needing to reach out to the developer. Admins are a crucial component to any ServiceNow team. They can handle support cases that come in, and either fix bugs that come up or have them documented for the ServiceNow Developer to look into. It’s entirely likely that an admin could handle a production issue on their own without even needing to escalate it to a developer. The ServiceNow admin can keep the platform running smoothly, from a day to day perspective. While a ServiceNow Admin understands how many of the components of the platform work, they might need a little bit of help putting it all together. That’s where a ServiceNow Developer would come in.
An admin should have an excellent understanding of how the task table is structured, how the platform processes emails and where to go to debug issues. The admin should also understand how the sub production environments function and how to move XML files between instances in the form of update sets.
It’s super important for the admin(s) to get trained properly, and this starts day 1. So the first thing an admin should do once a company has placed them into the role of “ServiceNow Admin” is to enroll them in ServiceNow Led admin training. Whether it is the ServiceNow Fundamentals course which is on-demand or the ServiceNow Fundamentals Instructor Led Training if a company is giving someone the “admin” and “security_admin” roles in ServiceNow – one of these should be a pre-requesite. As soon as they pass the ServiceNow Admin Certification exam, then they can be granted these 2 roles in ServiceNow.
Admins should be able to meet with business units and at least get requirements for a project defined. They should know whether something is possible to attain in the system.
A ServiceNow admin should be able to put together some business rules and client scripts, but would likely need assistance when writing more advanced pieces of code.
I would say that once an admin gets a bit of experience under their belt, there are enough options in ServiceNow to even build out applications on their own.
ServiceNow is touted as being a “Citizen Developer” platform, meaning that you should be able to have users create things on their own. There are a lot of solutions in ServiceNow to deliver applications and enhancements, without writing any code. And if there’s an option to not write code – that should probably be taken.
Since the ServiceNow admin is always learning, it’s important for them to stay motivated. There are a ton of excellent ways to learn more about the platform, whether it being on the ServiceNow Community site, a Self Guided Training course or even a blog like this. There are now plenty of opportunities for the right individual who is motivated to go out and master the platform.
Relationship between the Admins and Engineers – Bridging the Gap
Since both roles are working in the same environment at the same time, there needs to be constant communication between the 2 groups. These two roles need to work together super closely. It’s not possible to succeed while working in a silo.
It is also crucial that a part of the ServiceNow Developers calendar is carved out for further development and knowledge sharing to their admin(s). I have seen a weekly hour long check in work well for this. Where the admin comes to the table with questions and the Developer spends time explaining and really coaching them through how to better think about different ideas and concepts in the platform. As the Developers continue to coach the Admins through different ideas and problem areas, the admins will start to see the platform differently – and they’ll become closer to graduating into the ServiceNow Developer role.
To truly foster the growth of the Admins, it’s important for them both to work on some of the same projects together. For example, once an admin has ramped up, they should be introduced to the concept of Client Scripts and Business Rules by the developer. Then to Script Includes and Service Portal development.
The personality and professionalism of the admin and developer are important too. I’ve seen developers that were great at building out systems, but at the end of the day, were complete jerks. The developer needs to be patient and willing to coach and train the admin(s).
Don’t ever hire based on technical skill alone.
A ServiceNow Developer / Engineer
The ServiceNow Developer at any customer is, primarily, the one responsible for all of the development and design of the platform.
This extends to integrations, new projects, managing upgrades, and contributing to the roadmap, if one exists.
All of the scripting that occurs in the platform either needs to be done by the developer(s) or it needs to be reviewed by them. This involves making sure that scripts are written according to best practices and adhere to performance reviews and checks. The developer should be the one responsible for building out new applications, maintaining the Service Portal and the one building out new features – acrosss the entire system. It’s also worth mentioning that just because a script works, doesn’t mean that it can be shipped to production. I’ve seen a lot of crummy code that does work, but it’s written poorly – which is a nightmare for another developer coming in to either fix a bug or add customizations. It’s crucial for the developer to understand that technical debt has no home in their system.
Most of the time of the ServiceNow Developer should be spent building out requirements with stakeholders and then executing on what they’ve promised to deliver. The developer should also be responsible for designing and adhering to a proper release and sprint schedule. This might require working directly with Change Management and the CAB, to figure out when the Change Windows are, and when code can be released to production.
If a ServiceNow Road Map doesn’t exist, the ServiceNow Developer should work with management in IT to put one together.
The ServiceNow Developer should actually play a large role in building out the road map of the conversation. At some companies, it’s preferred to work directly with a Product or Project Manager. The Developer needs to at least have a seat at the table and be able to approve or reject things that do or don’t make sense. It’s important to both not approve every request that comes in, as well as having a conversation with the business units that want to get onto the platform. For the past couple of years, many teams outside of IT have been leveraging the power of the platform. There’s a lot of education that needs to occur with teams that have little to know familiarity with ServiceNow. It’s really a teachable moment, and a chance to improve the reputation of ServiceNow at your company.
It is commonly thought amongst IT Departments that you can “throw” a software engineer into ServiceNow and they’ll be able to start building on the platform and will be able to pick things up easily. While this is obviously dependent on the use case, due to the fact that mostly everything in ServiceNow is unique to the platform, down to the scripting language that is used – it is crucial for teams to not make this mistake. If a team decides to move a Generalized Software onto the platform, then you have to make sure that that resource engages in the proper ServiceNow related training, immediately. I have seen companies first hand make this mistake, which leads to costly re-implementation projects down the road.
It is important to realize that the ServiceNow Developers also need training in ServiceNow. It is completely appropriate for a ServiceNow Developer with a lot of platform expeirence to get training in a specific area that they’re not familiar with. For example, say you’ve got a great ServiceNow Developer and you’re implementing the Security Incident Response or Human Resources Application. One does not automatically understand the complexities of these applications – and it would be wise to receive ServiceNow training on these out of box applications. A lot can be on the job training as they work through different problems, but no ServiceNow Developer can be an expert at all of the applications that exist. There are simply far too many to be an expert at everything. But what they can become an expert at it is learning and figuring out how to understand the system and to think out of the box at times. This style of thinking is learned over the course of a long career. – mostly through experience and hopefully some mentorship.
Seeing the Bigger Picture – Creating A Successful Team
By now, we hope that you see the differences between the 2 roles. If so, you’ll have a better understanding of these 2 titles better than most recruiters currently do.
If you’re paying the high price of ServiceNow, make sure that whoever is building out your platform has the proper training and that you either have a road map or you’re working towards one with buy in from IT Management.
They need to be put in a place to succeed from day 1. And if your team is functioning or hasn’t been put together properly, don’t be afraid to change how the team is made up.
If you are working on the ServiceNow platform, even if it’s by chance, convince your boss to invest in your training before you run free in the system. This is a costly mistake. Letting people that don’t know what they’re doing leads to doing a costly reimplementation down the road.
Both the admin and the developer are crucial components to any team and no company can function efficiently, without both of them.
