UTM’s ServiceNow Architect Nia McCash wins MVP honour
If you’ve had to call on campus IT for help this year, you’ve probably benefited from the ServiceNow platform.
It’s the ticketing system for tracking client IT requests, allowing UTM students, faculty and staff to follow the status of their tickets while also helping I&ITS to respond to clients faster.
Nia McCash was one of the original developers on UTM’s ServiceNow onboarding team in 2016 (U of T’s downtown campus followed in 2019) and has been with them ever since.
For her efforts, ServiceNow has named her to their 2021 Developer MVP list, which recognizes ServiceNow developers who inspire other developers by sharing their extensive knowledge openly and inclusively.
The absence of women developers on the 2020 list didn’t escape the attention of the online ServiceNow networking group McCash belongs to, which is open to all female-identifying developers.
“We thought we should work on that,” she says. “So a couple of us psyched each other up to say ‘Hey, let’s just apply this year and see what happens.’”
An alumna of UTM, with honours Bachelor of Arts, Computer Science, English and Professional Writing, as well as a Bachelor of Education from the University of Toronto, McCash says her interest in technology developed out of necessity.
“I was growing up when the internet was just hitting the mainstream and we had the old IRC (Internet relay chat) rooms and if something malfunctioned with the computer or modem or the connection, I couldn’t talk to my friends,” she says. “My parents didn’t know anything about computers or technology, so it was up to me to fiddle around and make things work to get back to my friends online.”
Since joining the UTM I&ITS department, she has held such positions as system administrator, developer, web designer, Drupal 7 developer and a contract position as a professor. In June 2019, she moved up to ServiceNow Architect.
“Now, I’m more responsible for the platform as a whole, making sure the design decisions are sound,” she says. “It’s a bit less technical and more people management, making sure the devs and the business stakeholders are speaking the same language.”
McCash’s spot on ServiceNow’s MVP list has brought with it plenty of attention to her work.
“The visibility that I’ve had has been overwhelming,” she says. “The LinkedIn notifications have blown up just because the other MVPs have tagged me in their posts, and sent congratulatory messages and things like that. The number of people who have viewed my profile has just skyrocketed.”
If being on the MVP list continues to be a positive experience, McCash says she will consider applying again next year – and encourages others to look into it too.
To earn the status, developers must give public presentations/talks, share contributions, write technical blogs create video content and coding live streams, and participate in social media promotion of ServiceNow developer content.
“A lot of people are eligible,” she says. “Lots of people can do it if they are interested.”
For details on what the program is looking for, visit https://developer.servicenow.com/blog.do?p=/post/mvp-2021-profile-submission/