have you ever wanted to ask a ceo what they look for when hiring developer talent our guest today gives us his insight on this and more welcome to breakpoint the servicenow developer podcast here's your host chuck tamasi hello servicenow admins builders developers and all of you curious individuals that i always say with the utmost love and respect welcome to breakpoint the servicenow developer podcast where we bring you the latest tools tips and tradecraft to accelerate your career in this episode i have the great pleasure of talking to the self-titled mayor of servicenow glide fast ceo michael lombardo how are you today michael do well chuck the pleasure is all mine how are you doing today i'm doing great thanks for asking you know i'm going to jump right to that title how did you get to be the mayor of servicenow it's a great question well you know it's funny because when i was younger my mother used to say to me you should be the mayor one day you should be a mayor i think you should be a mayor so that was kind of always in my you know burned in my brain so uh you know once i got into the servicenow world that you know i you you had you know our celebrities like the service now guru and you know people kind of coming up with great brands and i loved it and uh and one day uh my mother said i still think you have time to be the mayor and i was like i'm gonna be the service now i'm here so it's not cool nobody else gave it to me uh other than yeah kind of self-appointed but kind of from my mother as well i guess i keep thinking about uh that scene in back to the future mayor goldie wilson yes yes yes i like the sound of that back to the future is one of my favorite movies look at this he's yeah i'm looking at the video he's got the the like the clock panel countdown date panel from the delorean sound signed by christopher lloyd oh yeah i love it back to didn't know that before this conversation yeah i know that's yeah well let's dig a little bit more into your work and personal life tell us a little bit about yourself who is michael lombardo yeah so i'm the ceo of glidefast consulting we're a servicenow elite partner um i started my i.t career off on the help desk um then the company i was at purchase servicenow and i became the administrator of servicenow and that was like 2010 so that was the i i live i live my uh servicenow career off by releases so that was the aspen release there you go 2010 2011 i'm not sure but it was the aspen release we got to upgrade you know just upgrading to berlin it was like it was it was was kind of mind-boggling for me because it just showed that the transformation from asthma was like wow this software can change that much um and then i got into the consulting world i left uh the hospital i was at uh where we implemented servicenow and then uh and then started glide fast uh about seven years ago in 2015. that's that's it just one two three year ago ceo just going with the flow that's really that's that's how i got it really when you're not focused on work what do you like doing for fun um you know so i have a beautiful wife and and two amazing uh little girls uh so i love hanging with them and uh try trying to be the best father and husband i can uh hopefully my wife is listening to this um i also love uh hiking and snowmobiling and snowboarding and uh this summer hopefully getting a jet ski that i can uh have some fun on on on a lake uh as well that sounds like fun yeah yeah i like outdoor stuff i like i spend so much time on the computer that i i need to like get out and uh be get get a little experience with nature yeah yeah yeah yeah well i'm gonna pivot a little bit we'll get into our main topic and normally when i do these conversations i explore how someone took their developer career from zero to 60 on service now but with you yeah i'd like to take a little different approach based on your position so going from servicenow architect to starting your own company is obviously a major step tell tell me what that was like yeah i mean i think uh so much of like i said a little earlier you know so much of my career has really been organic and just going with the flow so you know um first it really just started with doing kind of a little bit of everything right so i was a customer administrator then i got the consulting world i was a developer i played bpc on some projects i played believe it or not project manager on some projects um a trainer i was a trainer on a couple i ran some training sessions so that really kind of just spread me out pretty wide right where i got just a lot of experience across the whole platform different aspects of of those projects um and then it just going with the flow so i was at a partner for a couple years and you know i kind of wanted to go in a different direction and i ended up kind of kind of actually i'm going back my original intention was i go back to the customer side and then it kind of became me going independent where you know i got one kind of uh full-time job remote and then another one came up and then uh those customers you know asked for more of me and you know i had a really good network of people that uh in the servicenow space that uh that i was able to you know kind of bring in and i said hey you know what let me start uh we start a company i think this is a company that i have going here and uh so we just kind of registered a company and um i had a couple of partners and you know we just kind of just evolved from there you know and it all centered around providing value you know we were just providing value for customers and i knew a lot of other great developers and consultants and it just really became glide fast it was it was really never intentional i know it sounds a little crazy but it was never like we're going to start a company we're going to be this servicenow partner be the best in the world you know it it definitely grew into that pretty quickly but that was really um never the the intention from the beginning i like it great organic story and yeah also i want to point out uh congratulations to you and your team on the numerous awards it seems like every time i turn on linkedin it's like we got this award and we've been given that and servicenow said this about us like you've now got the america's elite segment partner of the year 2022 what do you attribute your success of all these awards to yeah i mean first of all thank you for for recognizing us on this and thank you to to servicenow and bill mcdermott and everybody who who gave us that award uh for for us the glad fast team it was like winning a championship right like winning that super bowl winning you know at the highest level you know getting that recognition and respect that we work so hard for i mean that's that's really what we work out we work hard for our customers we but we want you know to be recognized for your efforts there's nothing there's no greater feeling than that right um but our success is is definitely you know not not on one particular person it's really on the entire team you know our entire team day in day out is just working their tails off to be successful and and to mostly we love this platform so much we believe and you know because you're you're you're one you're one of those people too you believe in the servicenow platform so much that you devoted your whole life to you know so that's really you know what it comes down to is is the people at glidefast love servicenow so much love working and being part of the glidefast team so much um and that's really how we were able to to get that award and then i think you know some of the reasons why people love working at clyde fast and why you know people work so hard is because we invest in in training yes we invest in them we invest in you know paying people what they deserve and as much as possible and just and just caring about each other right like what makes us successful is that every person is here for the person next to them and that's a cycle right if you're if every person here is there for the person next to them then when you need help there's someone there for you you know and that's the key to our success and you know that is i think proven ourselves in this award is just one way that it has as well how many people work at glidefast right now 450 almost okay and and that's of late april 2022 so draw a line in the sand there oh we're we're we're not stopping there exactly that's twice as many people over twice as many people than we're at servicenow when i started just a few short years ago that's crazy yeah so you're on a big trajectory and it again it seems like every time i turn around in uh linkedin there's one of your employees with a new cma you know the certified master architect certification or just over and over we're seeing these continued accomplishments so congratulations again so as a leader what words of advice can you give to those new developers aside from send me your resume send it this way if you're good um you know for me it's always been and everybody kind of has their own you know secret sauce right and you know not everybody's gonna follow the same direction but for me it's from the second i got exposed to servicenow i never looked back i my friends used to you know make fun of me for having my laptop at like you know house parties and stuff um but it you have to you really have to dedicate yourself you really have to work hard and i know you know it's for some reason every time i post uh you know work hard on linkedin there's a lot of controversy people say work smart not hard i i never loved that statement i i gotta tell you that was i you know you do have to work smart no one's saying you know do repetitive tasks and do things that are not valuable or efficient but you you have to put in the hours you it take this is a very deep and wide platform right it's it's the the leader in a lot of different industries for a reason right and and you know you have to dedicate yourself you have to um you know work hard and learn it and you know you're never done just like servicenow's never done it's you know same thing i tell my customers service now your journey's never done there's always more improvements we're adding to the platform there's always more automation that you can add you know after an implementation right it's the same thing with your skill sets and your knowledge you're never done like okay now i know everything there is no finish there is no finish line you know and one thing to go along with that and we've talked about this with other people on this show is along with the learning you've got to share that information you've got to promote yourself yes you may be the smartest person in the room but if nobody knows it it doesn't amount to a hill of beans it's nothing yes absolutely and that's something i learned really early on when i was getting into the consulting world was some of the the best developers in the world maybe they're introverts maybe they you know i used to hear this all the time maybe i do now still you know oh i'm i i know you know itsm or i know hr but i'm definitely not an expert right you know and and i'm like what do you think is an expert you know you've been doing this for eight years you are an expert you know but they're like yeah but compared to this person no you know i don't know everything and you can't do that right you need to have some confidence in yourself and you know i'm not saying somebody that with with five days experience would be i'm an expert but you know have some confidence in yourself promote yourself you know be proud and be brave and you know you know tell the world that you know who you are right and um maybe you don't need to call yourself the servicenow mayor but come up with the service now hobo or something yeah create some videos create some content write a blog i mean i can't tell you how many re service now research resources i've searched on the internet over the years just trying to get any information i could to learn from ins and those people who are creating those content became like like celebrities for me you you're one of them you're one of the top ones the server is now guru chase benson um you know uh the servicenow elite website those are unbelievable resources and they became like superheroes for me because they helped me learn things that i didn't know and it's not a herculean effort i mean that's just good career management right there because yeah you as a ceo or you as a hiring manager or one of your hiring managers when they're doing their research they want to go what else is this person done exactly okay i got a resume in hand oh look there's a github repo on their personal website which it's like oh this person did this game on service now this person they're they're a thinker they're an innovator they do this on holidays and weekends they're sick like the rest of us exactly and it happened i'll give you a perfect example you know servicenow elite.com mike kaufman he works at clyde fest now when when when you know i came knocking or when he one of us you know reached out to each other you know it was like okay when can you start rarely do i even read a resume rarely especially in a small space like servicenow reputational you know do i you know chances are i probably already know you and obviously linkedin is is the most powerful self-promotion tool out there so i think your whole audience is definitely already on linkedin so we don't have to go through that but that's that's a rabbit hole i could definitely dive down to the people that are thinking oh i'm an introvert i don't think i can do that you got to get over that yeah it's it's a matter of do you want to do what's comfortable or you want to do what's effective 100 and no one's saying you have to go on your own tv show or a podcast like you right yeah you know but i've seen people just do screen shares and no voice and you know text um your blogs you know there's ways you can do it without you know making yourself solely uncomfortable you know just so uncomfortable but you know get comfortable being uncomfortable is what i is some is a lesson i learned early on and then you will be comfortable yeah right you will be comfortable look if you don't have any ideas come to me i've got additional ideas on how to promote your work because i've i can't do all of my ideas that's impossible at this point it was fun we mentioned uh a news show that we piloted but never aired i would love that we realized this is going to be a pretty heavy lift each week for us to get stories and whatnot just to put together three to five minutes yeah hey we mentioned that at one point jace benson's got it now he's he's been doing this for a few weeks so you know kind of cool is is it a show or or a rss i know he had the rss feed did he start he's getting his content from rss and then he puts it on youtube and i think he's socializing it on linkedin as well that's awesome i gotta check that out and he gets you know more reputation in the industry it's like oh yeah he used to answer community questions with youtube videos wow and that is like was my first exposure to servicenow youtube actually i don't know if it was you or him but i used to love reading his uh watching his community answers through youtube you know because he'd be like hey here's a link to my video and you you could visualize you could visually see it instead of just reading it i love that okay i'm gonna i'm gonna pretend i was not introduced to service now back in 2008 and i've been a full stack developer for quite some time what words of advice would you have for me i've been i've been doing all these different languages on all these different platforms with all these different frameworks and now i'm new to servicenow what what advice do you have for me this is funny because we see this right and you're almost you almost you know too much you know too much chuck well i've got a lot of preconceived notions i've been a c programmer i've been a php programmer exactly right and i i feel like those those developers run to let me completely re-engineer re-architect over-build you know the the challenge with servicenow and those type of developers is they have a tendency to over develop right just because you can doesn't mean you should you have to keep it simple in service now you know there's there's times when you know there's hundreds of lines of code for you to write you know believe me there will be times but there's also times where you want to run and and write all those lines of code but there's a drop down somewhere that can that it doesn't exist you can build it and and just a few snippets of code allows it to be scalable right it allows it to be modifiable um you know by someone else in the future right um and and not have to you know go through all those lines of code because it's a platform right we're not this isn't a homegrown you know application where it you know a feature or a a tool doesn't exist you know it servicenow has so many ways for you to achieve what you're trying to do and a lot of those ways are do not require hundreds of lives of code a lot of it can be done i don't want to say out of the box but a combination of light development and configuration so keep it simple stupid one of my customers used to be called her name was sandy and she would say i like to say keep it simple sandy you know that's great advice because even as a new servicenow developer back in 2008 i did some of that oh yeah we all do we all have and it's just there is so many examples of of those there's so many of those scenarios you know there's five different ways to make a field read only in service now but you know there's one there's one best way right so okay back to the talent back to the talent as a ceo of a rapidly growing consulting firm what kind of skills do you look for as you build out that army of developer talent it's weird because you would think um you think the technical stuff comes first right but it's you know is this person honest um does this person have empathy does this person want to be part of a team is their ego too big right those kind of things come first and then it's like all right we got past that how much experience do they have how creative can they be how much they love service now i love passion you know i think passion is my greatest quality for being a ceo or being a part of a servicenow partner so yeah it's it the more of the soft skills are really important as well you know articulating your thoughts you know well and um but you know being kind and honest are the first things you know what's what kind of personalities this person have you know can they hold a conversation you know those are those are really important obviously for a consultant yes they would need to hold a conversation listening to requirements explaining back giving alternatives objection handling all that good stuff comes into play here so yeah i could see why you're looking for for those soft skills first yeah i heard a a very senior hiring manager who's done thousands of interviews say to me one time i will take 10 percent more energy and you're going to get energy when you're passionate 10 more energy over 100 percent more technical skill every time all the time every day every day i even say that to my customers right when they say hey what are we going to need uh who what what type of resource we're going to need on this project do we have to go and hire and and i always say listen i'd take i'd rather take one of you know typically we start in the itsm world so i'll say if you have a hungry motivated help desk agent that wants to grow in their career and is humble and and and willing to just work hard i'd rather work with someone like that than somebody maybe from your engineering team who is a know-it-all and you know is just is not going to be a good partner with us you know so that's it's the same thing with you know energy and ambition and hunger to improve themselves and you know being humble and all that is is crucial crucial in my world that's who you want to invest in exactly okay you you hearing this listener you're hearing this okay i want to flip back the pages of your career history document and uh ask you what do you consider the highlight of your career so far so far we realize there's still road to go yeah oh man you know the the highlight of my career you know it's hard because i do feel like there's so much you know runway left in my career um i have a lot of mountains i do want to conquer you know there's definitely some some milestones you know even my first go live you know as a customer my first go live you know as a consultant starting glide fast registering that llc getting my first business card 19 was probably in the glide fast world knowledge 19 for us was unbelievable because we had we had just hit 100 employees we sent the whole company to knowledge uh we had the higher sponsorship i loved our booth it was massive it was in front of some of the big gsi's you know and they were like who's this guy we had a phenomenal party like the suite we had our party in had a basketball court in it oh wow at the palms there was a basketball court in our suite at our party so you know just meeting getting our whole team together you know we were starting to like kind of get some recognition at some high levels of servicenow so i'd say that was really a huge milestone and a huge highlight and plus we haven't really had anything since then right because of covid so the whole world's kind of been shut down since knowledge 19 was the last knowledge in person knowledge right so that that was really a huge um uh highlight i'd say of my career and of glidefast for sure but you're right there's more to come oh yeah there's more to come there's more to come as we get back together for in-person events there's memories to be made and looking forward to it greatly and for anyone else who's wondering i'm never retiring never like there is no i always people ask me like you know you must you've had all these success you must want everything i'm like let's get the record claire on on break point on chuck chuck's podcast i will retire when i am dead and gone like i am i love this service now space so much i want glide fast to become a global elite partner i want us to be the unequivocal leader acro across the whole industry you know winning elite part of the year is great but we want to win global elite plan of the year we want to be you know serving customers across the whole world um and really really put put service servicenow you know help help servicenow get to the next level as well more opportunities for the listeners i can i can sense you a couple people sending you their resumes now and at infowaycloudfast.com there it is i was just about to ask you how do we get in touch with you yeah you can find me on linkedin i think as you said mayor of servicenow is i'm on linkedin uh definitely follow us on linkedin subscribe to us on youtube we got some great content if you're not already yes um and you can reach us on our website we have a contact page but infor clyde fast as well i will have all of those links in the show notes so don't worry if you didn't write them down while you're driving we hope you're not doing that and thank you thank you michael and thank you wonderful listener for joining us today don't forget to check out the other servicenow podcast you can find them all at servicenow.com podcast breakpoint is brought to you of course by servicenow executive producer is yours truly and video captions have been added by the gracious earl duque and to find out more about the servicenow developer program head over to developer.servicenow.com again thank you thank you so much michael great discussion today and i look forward to talking to you again real soon thank you chuck please let us know what you think about this podcast you can leave feedback or ask questions in the servicenow community for more great information on servicenow development check out the servicenow developer portal at developer.servicenow.com thanks for listening how was your day my day was phenomenal woke up took a nap worked out took another nap it's good to be the ceo going from servicenow architect to try that again wait did i skip a question no i didn't okay can we edit that and damn it i'm rambling on that's what editing is for i'm i'm not going on tick tock anytime soon no not tick tock for me did i already ask this oh in fact i'm going to scrap that question and start over i'm going to bring that in even better that was terrible it's unbelievable