From Colorado to London then Sydney: Angus Palmer's journey to AC3

After graduating university, Angus Palmer did what many young Australians do when their studies are finished: set off for adventure. Packing up his belongings, he followed the snow all the way to Aspen, Colorado in the US. And, after spending two snow seasons working on the runs, he had been well and truly bitten by the travel bug.

From the American Rockies, Palmer skipped across the pond to London. It was meant to be a two-month stopover and a gateway to Europe, where he was intending to settle. But instead, he got a job in the capital city with a managed service provider. And, as can happen sometimes, in the blink of an eye he realised he had been in London for a decade.

Commencing with the service provider as the one and only person on the service desk, he then moved up the ranks, into an operations manager role and finishing as company director. “I wore multiple hats in my time,” Palmer says. “I managed teams, I changed around departments and I got to know the company. When I left, the company had grown to 120 employees.”

It was around this time, some eight years ago, that Palmer decided it was time to return to local shores and, with his new family, he came back to Australia. “I got back to Sydney and was hired pretty quickly at AC3,” he says. “I was offered a role in the service delivery team – it’s such a focused job and is all about being the spokesperson of the customer.” But, for Palmer, the role was not just about being the spokesperson for the customer, but also about helping AC3’s sales team by being a spokesperson for them too. “I saw my role as sort of a dual role,” he explains. “It wasn’t just a service role, but also a sales role. I focused on trying to get customer outcomes.”

THE ADVENT OF SERVICENOW

Palmer worked in this self-declared dual role for six months before AC3 embraced ServiceNow, switching its ITM tool to the platform. “I had implemented this tool before,” says Palmer. And this experience meant he was a natural fit for the selection panel of the ITM tool that became SeviceNow.

It’s now been six years since the implementation of ServiceNow. Palmer says he started with a team of three, before progressing to become manager of the team, which then grew big enough for some juniors to come on board too.

Two years ago, he decided he wanted to switch to a solution architect role, and so he handed the leadership reins to another team member. “It’s something I love to do, being a manager to someone and then mentoring and developing them to one day become a manager themselves,” he says. “At the end of the day, if I can get them better at what they do, then they can take the load off me and I can focus on other challenges at the business.”

Even after 15 years in tech, Palmer still finds it a joy to work in the sector. His approach to tech is to look for a way that it can support in him removing any repetitive and monotonous processes. “I’m rather lazy in a way. Like, a motivated lazy,” Palmer laughs. “I’ll spend a lot of time automating something that may save me 10 minutes in the end. If it’s 10 minutes every day, though, this is worth it!”

His role is also full of problem- solving. The ServiceNow team is working on a tool designed to help people in the workflow process. The tool will change the way people are working and, in some cases, may change how someone has worked for their entire career. But working through such kinks as a team and heading towards the same outcome is rewarding. “There are preconceived ideas that there is only one way to get something,” he says. “But there is a broken way and then other ways to fix the broken way.”

The challenges are unique too. “One of the challenges I’ve had is that I’ll talk to people who are experts in what they do,” Palmer says. “I speak to people who live and breathe their role. This is what they do. And then I’m coming in as the supposed expert of the tool. It can be tough to explain to them that even though I’m not an expert on what they do – that’s their experience – I can help them with their tech side.”

One of Palmer’s proudest achievements in his role has been gaining his master architect certification with ServiceNow. This was no easy feat considering the rigorous and tight selection process, followed by a four-month program.

All of this work accumulates into one final board review, where the candidate is faced with a fictional customer with a problem that needs solving. Granted three hours to prepare a one-hour presentation, the candidate is expected to deliver a solution that involves multiple products on the platform. “Some of the questions are designed to throw you off course or run out of time,” Palmer explains. “You have to tailor your message to who’s in the room and the decision- makers. You have to know it all inside and out.”

But Palmer was up to the task. One of only 190 architects worldwide, he is appreciative of the qualification.

PROGRAM LEARNINGS

“The qualifications that you do up until the program are technical,” he says. “But what I learned in the program was exactly how the platform solves enterprise-wide problems. It’s about how these products fit together with the business’ strategies.”

And Palmer’s advice for those interested in following a similar pathway? It’s about embracing and accepting that no one is perfect and we all get things wrong sometimes. “It’s OK to make mistakes,” he says. “If you’re ready to make a decision, then you should be able to defend and explain your reasoning for it. “If you can say ‘I came to this conclusion through X, Y or Z, then no one can argue with that. It’s about integrity with that,” Palmer concludes.