For Gen Z, low coding is related to tools and workplace culture

21-year-old Madison DaValle understands the value of application development: In high school, she won funds through a shark tank competition to create a nanny application.

However, she is not a coder. In fact, in order to build her nanny application, she had to hire a developer. As a senior student majoring in strategic communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she still feels overwhelmed by application development.

“I think this is something I will never be able to do unless I take a coding course or change my major, or something like that,” DaValle told ZDNet.

However, as a global communications intern at ServiceNow last summer, DaValle used the company’s low-code tools to build a brand new business application, automating some tedious and time-consuming press release processes. As part of the ServiceNow Citizen Developer Program, she built the application using ServiceNow’s App Engine Studio.

According to Marcus Torres, General Manager of ServiceNow’s IntegrationHub and Vice President of Platform Products, DaValle’s experience reflects the state of ServiceNow in the market.

“What the company really wants to do is to enable people to solve their own problems,” he said.

Low-code and no-code tools have become popular in a range of industries. Forrester Research predicts that by the end of this year, 75% of development stores will use low-code platforms. As DaValle and her Generation Z peers enter the labor market, these platforms give them the opportunity to take advantage of their deep understanding of digital tools.

“For those who have grown up with technology…being a creator on their own is an amazing thing,” Torres said.

To be sure, low-code tools will not solve the personnel problems that plague the technology industry. Although they can help speed up the production of applications, they cannot replace professional developers. At the same time, some surveys show that young employees care more about workplace culture and flexibility than the tools available to them.

However, DaValle’s experience shows that low codes are complementary to a workplace culture that supports and recognizes career development.

“For many people my age, when we talk about where we want to work, honestly, it’s not as much as the company does technically,” she said. “It’s about, what is their culture? Is it easy to get along with the people you work with? Is your schedule flexible? ServiceNow is good at [offering flexibility through the pandemic]. They allow you to actually run the project. They see the interns as the truly valuable members of the team. “

DaValle decided to join ServiceNow’s citizen developer program after observing the cumbersome process of a team requesting press releases throughout the company. Employees can fill out the form and send it to the public relations director for review and approval. However, many teams spend a lot of time filling out forms, only to find that their project does not have enough news value to publish news. Other teams will only send their forms to the wrong people, delaying the process.

“I really see an opportunity to create an application with low code that can better route these press release requests and allow the PR team to filter them appropriately,” DaValle said.

In order to use App Engine Studio, she participated in a 6-hour training course that introduced the basics of low-code development. In total, she said, it took her about three weeks to build the application. She said that she was able to complete it without sacrificing time on other priorities.

Torres said hundreds of ServiceNow employees have joined the company’s citizenship developer program. The program has best practices to ensure that it does not result in a large number of applications that do not meet professional standards or do not meet the company’s needs. For example, it provides “peer reviews” for applications under development and “office hours” for citizen developers who need additional help. Before the application is released, a team will test it and make sure it is consistent with the business.

Torres said ServiceNow plans to productize these “guardrails” and supplement other steps that App Engine customers have developed to support citizen developers.

“We will develop an out-of-the-box citizen developer program based on all the best practices we have learned as a company and all the best practices our customers have told us,” he said. The rules we set allow people to continue to develop and innovate. Sometimes they will hit the guardrail, but this will put them on the right track. “