The tech sector is full of ambitious types who always knew they were going to work with computers – from the moment they booted up ‘Dungeon Keeper’ on their beige CRT monitors as a child in the ‘90s.
But for others, the road to Damascus is long and winding, with unexpected turns and crossroads along the way – so perhaps it’s even more impressive when such individuals go on to become successful founders, managers, and influencers.
Merv Small, Founder and Managing Director of Agiro and a solutions provider based in New South Wales, admits that his pivot from music – his first passion – to technology was “kind of accidental”.
While working for Australian pay-TV provider Foxtel more than ten years ago, Merv “happened to be the guy who raised his hand” when a new internal system was adopted by the company. It was called ServiceNow.
Merv told NowBen: “Basically, the head of the department came in and said, ‘Here’s ServiceNow’. And I was like, ‘What is ServiceNow?’
“I was not a developer. I was not an admin. I wasn’t super technical in any way.
“I jumped in, got my admin training done, and the business just really took off using the platform. So that really helped me get more into platform, building stuff, custom stuff [like], ‘Hey, can you do this workflow? Hey, can you do this?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure, whatever’, and then I’m just learning in the background.”
With no technical background or IT certifications, Merv had a long road of late-night research, forum browsing, and trial and error ahead of him.
“There wasn’t a lot of ServiceNow documentation back then, 13 years ago,” Merv said. “I just had to learn on the job, get my hands dirty. I did a bunch of other training as well, which really helped.”
Over time, he got to grips with the platform, building workflows and designing custom applications.
But ServiceNow was still the day job for Merv… wasn’t it?
The Crossroads
The decision to prioritize his tech career over music did not come easily. At roughly the same time he was making a name for himself as a ServiceNow specialist, Merv was offered a record deal in the United States.
Merv told us: “While all this stuff was going on with ServiceNow and my job, it was still a side thing. It pays the bills right now, [but] not my core focus.
“This whole time I’m going around Australia, doing music, producing for US-based Grammy award-winning artists, [going] on radio, doing interviews and performing in front of large crowds. That was my focus, that was what I wanted to do, that was my career – not ServiceNow. That was just a day job, right?
“So the more I got into ServiceNow, I found it more interesting and rewarding, because someone would come up with a problem, and they’ll say, ‘Hey, how do I do this?’ and then it’s [like solving] a puzzle.
“I always say it’s just like Lego, right? You put it together, and you have the end solution. And so that was rewarding doing that.”
In 2014, Merv was sent to Knowledge in San Francisco, which, he remembers, had around 6,000 attendees.
“That’s where it all changed for me,” Merv said. “Just seeing that different side of tech, seeing the type of people and not feeling so sort of on the outside like an outcast, I felt like, ‘OK, I do ServiceNow, so I’m part of this.’ So I had that going on – that feeling of belonging to the industry and enjoying working on ServiceNow.
“Then the music stuff was taking off, and I was looking at potentially signing a record deal in the States for a US-based record label. That was my crossroads moment. It’s like ServiceNow or music, and I obviously chose ServiceNow!”
“That feeling of belonging to the industry and enjoying working on ServiceNow.”
Following his decision, Merv’s music career wound down, and his ServiceNow career picked up, going on to do more certifications and be headhunted into different roles.
The ServiceNow Job Market
After working as a certified trainer, Merv joined Deloitte Australia, helping to establish and scale their ServiceNow consulting practice. But in 2021, with years of experience behind him, he took the leap into entrepreneurship, launching boutique ServiceNow consultancy Agiro.
The firm’s first major client was Telstra, a major Australian telecom provider. Since then, Agiro has grown steadily, carving out a niche in complex implementations and hard-to-fill roles.
Merv now regularly talks to aspiring tech workers – many emerging from non-traditional backgrounds, like himself.
Merv is a firm believer that you don’t need to be a developer or computer science graduate to succeed in the ServiceNow ecosystem.
He advises beginners to start with the platform’s foundational modules and take advantage of free resources like the ServiceNow Community and its learning portal, the newly rebranded ServiceNow University.
With demand for certified talent rising, Small said the market is hot and competitive.
The platform itself is expanding, with new releases and vertical offerings for a wide range of industries, meaning more complexity and more opportunity.
So what’s going on with the ServiceNow job market right now?
Merv says: “The job market right now has changed. Expectations have changed, both from an employer side and an employee side. Obviously, I’ve sat on both sides of the table, and I can honestly say that it has become way more lucrative and specialized, and there’s also more need for it.
“Back when I first started, because not many people knew what ServiceNow was or the potential of it, there wasn’t a lot of value placed on your skill set. ‘OK, you do ServiceNow, that’s great, but you’re another developer’ or ‘It’s just another platform.’
“Now when you’re sitting in the ServiceNow space, that’s a very highly sought-after, specialized, and specific space. So the prices have gone up, and the expectations have gone up, as well as the breadth of talent. So there’s been this incremental shift, and that’s over the last five years, I’d say.”
Merv said he has been in conversations where people have asked for 50 thousand more than what it would have been in the previous few years.
“We need developers. There’s a massive shortage of supply and demand. People who are getting into it now, it is an amazing time to jump into the market because we need some. As a partner, I can say that, and I know customers have the same sentiment. There’s a shortage of experienced developers because they get hunted.”
Merv Small, Founder and Managing Director, Agiro
But Merv also stressed that it’s not just developers – business analysts (BAs) are in demand too.
He said: “When I speak to someone – say I’m looking for a BA and I find a ServiceNow BA – it’s almost like gold. I’m jumping on that person, because general BAs are great and general PMs are great, but you find someone that has ServiceNow on their resume and they’re a PM and they’re a BA, and they’re a tester – they’re gold. So, that side of things has really, really escalated.”
Merv advises that ServiceNow professionals should get certified because when someone looks at your resume and they see that, it “puts you in a different class” and gives you a better bargaining position.
Final Thoughts
Merv’s story is, to my mind, one of love and hope. Some people fall into their roles through necessity, but Merv was presented with two options and made a conscious decision to pursue ServiceNow, which had, over time, become his true passion. This is the love aspect.
The hope lies in his unlikely beginnings. As alluded to in my rather dated and generation-specific introduction, there are some people who always knew they would pursue something in the tech sector, who were ‘meant’ to be here.
For those of us who do not fall into that category, it can seem a daunting place at times. But, like Merv, there is a world of potential and opportunity for anyone to thrive in this environment – if only we choose to do so.