Become a Better ServiceNow Developer - Programs and resources

[Martin Ivanov]

ServiceNow provides numerous initiatives and programs that can enhance your growth within the Ecosystem. Regardless of your current experience, I am sure that you can benefit from at least one of these, if not from all of them.

Provoked by the fact that one must dig a little bit to find out about their existence, I decided to collect them in an article – a single source where the most interesting initiatives can be found. Here we go:

ServiceNow Mentorship program – a newly developed initiative, giving opportunity for everyone to seek mentorship or provide such. A user can apply for one of the options or for both. Application process includes some questions related to your current level and your desired goals/achievements.

Based on the responses, people from the program will manually seek for your pair and once matched, you will both receive emails with your mentor/mentee details, as well as some guidance on how to conduct the mentorship meetings. It is obligatory to do them once per month. Of course, for better results, I’d assume that the more the more is a better option.  

Code snippets for API reference – as you know, the ServiceNow team is open to hear feedback from peers and work towards bettering the docs. In this regard, they have launched an initiative where developers are asked to provide example code snippets for the API reference. As a reward for the successfully published snippets, ServiceNow issues a $25 gift voucher per each snippet.

Community MVP – being a community MVP is dream for everyone who contributes to the ServiceNow community on a regular basis. This is the highest level of recognition and quite logically, doesn’t come easy. Candidates go through a selection based on multiple criteria, such as content produced in different platforms, participation in events, recording tutorial videos etc. The application is open once a year, typically in December. New batch of MVPs are usually announced in early February.

Rising Star – as mentioned above, the MVP award is the highest recognition. To fulfill the gap between being an MVP and being a regular Community contributor, ServiceNow has launched another recognition level since this year – The Rising Star program. It is aimed at people who want to be MVPs one day but are not yet there. Awardees will be granted with a badge, early access to some features, as well as some guidance on how to produce valuable content for the Community. Application will be open twice a year – in the beginning and in the middle of each calendar year. The application for the first ever batch is already completed, but a new one is coming up in the summer – why not give it a try?

ServiceNow developer program YouTube – what is a program if it doesn’t have a YouTube channel nowadays? That’s right – nothing. Fortunately, the ServiceNow Developer program has an amazingly rich channel with various content on each topic and product. One can spend months there. My highlights are the series by the best-ever-speaker @Chuck Tomasi:

• Learning JavaScript on the Now Platform
• Learning Integrations on the Now Platform

Both series provide an extensive knowledge, served with smile and really easy to grasp and implement.

TechnNow episodes – these series exist for quite long now. Usually, some new platform features are discussed, or some interesting development possibilities are showcased. Full episode list can be found here. A new one is on the way this Thursday, where the features of San Diego will be discussed. Can’t wait!

And last, but not least – The Community!

The strongest advice I could ever give someone, looking to expand their capabilities in the ServiceNow domain is The Community. Go there (here 😊), browse articles, blogs and questions, try to answer some, or just spectate the topics that you are interested in. Whenever you have some difficulties, do not hesitate to ask. There are millions of peers out there, ready to share their experience and help you resolve your issue.

But, don’t forget to award them by marking their answer Correct (if the question is yours, and the answer helps you resolve your issue) and Helpful (if the answer helped you resolve and issue or you just learned something new by reading it.

I am planning to expand this page with more and more initiatives. To be up to date, please Bookmark this article. I would also invite you to share some more topics that I missed, so I can add these and help more and more people become Better ServiceNow Developers. Cheers!