We’ve spoken to Adam Cawkwell, a recent addition to the UP3 Technical Consultancy team, and asked him some questions about how he’s finding the role, the culture at UP3, and how his long-term goals are being supported. Read on to see his answers and learn what it’s like to work as a Technical Consultant at UP3.
How have the first 6 weeks been?
It’s going really really well, I’m really happy. It’s such a lovely environment to work in, and I’ve already managed to get involved in some cool projects. It’s been an amazing start, and I couldn’t have asked for much more really.
What’s going well in the job so far?
Like I say, being able to contribute almost immediately. Typically, when you join a new company, there’s often a period of getting used to things and settling in. But at UP3 I was able to settle super quick, I was on a project before the end of my first week and contributing by the middle of the second week. That was an awesome thing to be able to settle in that quickly, and that’s a testament to everyone involved with that project. Everyone was super friendly, helping me understand a customer that was brand new to me, and all their data and intricacies. Generally, you’d expect a few weeks of training and getting used to things, so being able to hit the ground running so quickly was really positive.
I’ve been able to work with lots of different people. I’ve already gotten to work with a lot of the other Technical Consultants, and quite a few people on other teams, like Managed Services, Business Process Consultants and the Engagement Managers. I’ve been able to collaborate with different people and everyone has been so friendly and welcoming.
Has the job been what you were expecting?
Yeah, everything I hoped for. There’re really interesting projects going on, a nice variety of stuff. There’re opportunities for training, development and learning. Justin (the Technical Director) is very hot on us knowledge sharing and so I’ve had a lot of opportunities for collaboration from that point of view.
From what I’ve seen so far, everyone has bought into the UP3 values. The fact that if something needs doing, they get on with it. They support each other, and no one is above a menial task, like watering the plants.
So, you’d say UP3’s culture really lives up to its values?
Yeah, absolutely, you can see it in the way everyone gets involved. Everyone who I’ve called so far with a question has always said “sure”, no one has been above helping me, whether it’s something simple or something super complex. This goes all the way to me calling up Justin, as Technical Director, and him saying “let’s have a look, let’s collaborate, let’s learn together.” It’s really fun from my perspective, it creates a really nice working environment.
Are you enjoying working with your team?
It’s been really really good, everyone is super keen to get involved with things. I’ve seen people be asked to get involved with basic tasks, and when stuff comes up that isn’t very technically challenging, no one complains, everybody just says “let’s do it.”
I’ve already been able to collaborate with at least half of the team, if not more than that, and everyone has a “let’s work together” mentality. For me, there’s nothing worse than sitting down and just burying my head alone in something for weeks on end, it’s more fun to be jumping on calls with people and collaborating. Working with your peers you can learn so much quicker, you get stuff done so much better, honestly it promotes a lovely working environment at the same time.
And how are you finding the role itself?
It’s really interesting! I enjoy both the technical and consultative sides of the role and it certainly fits that. I was working with National Highways for about a month, and I got to do some cool things there around business services. The work for me, so far, has been really varied. I did one piece for a couple of weeks, and then helped on a couple of other pieces of story development. I’m currently covering three different Managed Development Sprints for three different customers, which has allowed me to see some completely different ServiceNow instances and requirements! In my previous company I did the same sort of work for extended periods of time, being on one thing for up to a year. Being able to work on different pieces and work across a range of our customers has been a nice start. Working with different modules and different technologies has been a fun challenge and is keeping me on my toes for sure.
Do you have any goals? And are UP3 supporting them?
Short-term, I’d really like to get involved in a Green-Field Implementation, a from scratch implementation of ServiceNow. It is really interesting to see ServiceNow put in from scratch and built from the ground up in a bespoke way for a customer.
Medium to long-term I would like to be a Senior Technical Consultant. Continue to develop myself, both professionally and personally, into more of a leadership role. Just try to develop my skills within ServiceNow and outside of it, to keep progressing and learning.
I’ve got multiple objectives around multiple pieces of training for ServiceNow, certifications that Justin wants me to work towards, and he’s made it clear that if I need time to work towards them, that will be given to me. And with UP3 being an Elite ServiceNow Partner we get tons of available training resources from Now Learning. And even outside of that, Justin’s made it clear that if there was another training course or something else outside of ServiceNow that I think would be valuable, he’s more than happy to support me going for that. I absolutely feel supported in terms of training and development and I’m extremely excited to see what’s ahead at UP3!
Thank you so much to Adam for talking to us and giving us an honest look at starting as a Technical Consultant at UP3. We’ll definitely follow up with him in a few months’ time to see how he’s getting on. In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about working for UP3, you can check out our careers page for more insights and to see those UP3 values Adam was talking about.
