Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional
John White | Nick Korte
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Finding Drive: The Parallels of Mentoring and Technology Partnerships with Daniel Paluszek (1/3)
How does one company form an effective technology partnership with another company? Our guest this week might tell you it’s not so different than a successful mentoring relationship. It requires alignment on the outcomes both parties want to achieve. Daniel Paluszek is a Principal Partner Technology Strategist at ServiceNow, and in episode 337 he helps us set some context on technology partnerships and go-to-market strategies before we discuss his personal journey to working in technology. We’ll follow Daniel through early experience working at a university help desk, learn about how he grew in scope and responsibility working for a defense contractor, understand why he later chose to move into a consulting role, and wrap the entire discussion with advice on mentoring and the importance of effective communication. Original Recording Date: 06-11-2025 Topics – Meet Daniel Paluszek, What Makes a Technology Partner Best of Breed, Tech Origin Story, Mentorship and Lessons in Developing Others, Communication through Presentations, A Step Toward Consulting 2:12 – Meet Daniel Paluszek Daniel Paluszek is a Principal Partner Technology Strategist at ServiceNow. He is part of a solution consulting team supporting ServiceNow’s global strategic partners. Daniel and his peers work to optimize the way in which ServiceNow and its global partners go to market together to solve customer business problems and build solutions that drive business transformation. On a daily basis, Daniel looks at the following: Where is the industry moving? What technology is ServiceNow developing that can apply to industry challenges? What are the customer pain points, and how can a joint strategy be developed to solve these? Daniel consistently thinks about how to solve problems, and it may not be something technical that solves a problem. ServiceNow has evolved from an IT ticketing platform to a work platform, and many of the things Daniel works on span beyond IT. 4:21 – What Makes a Technology Partner Best of Breed What does it mean to be a partner to a technology company like ServiceNow? Many listeners may not understand this. Daniel believes a partner can look at a customer from an agnostic point of view to help solve specific business or technical challenges. Partners usually work with and have a joint strategy with several equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or ISVs (independent software vendors). These can be leveraged to provide a best of breed solution that meets a customer’s requirements. Regardless of a partner’s experience, they should focus on solving the customer’s unique problem(s), and this means ignoring / removing the technology landscape to make sure they understand what problem needs to be solved. Once the problem(s) are well understood, a plan and solution can be jointly developed. Solution partners can aid companies like ServiceNow in answering customer requirements. John likes this explanation of the partner ecosystem and expected Daniel to use the word reseller, but he did not mention it. “Resell for me is a motion, a sales motion. It is not the end all or be all. There’s some great resell partners, but in my mind, in my vision, the strongest partners are the ones that encompass the entire lifecycle…. The partners that are achieving and acquiring the new business look at it from a holistic approach…not just selling a product.” – Daniel Paluszek Executive leaders like Bill McDermott talk about empowering businesses to increase revenue and productivity while reducing operational expense, and Daniel tells us this effort has to focus on the core problems. A partner may also have professionals Nick mentions being a partner may also mean the partner can do professional services for a specific technology stack tied to a hardware or software vendor. John thinks even consulting services are in service of the greater outcomes a partner is trying to drive for an end customer. The goal would not be to sell services or specific pieces / parts but to “partner” with the customer and vendors to present a best of breed solution. Daniel agrees and says it is about the outcomes we’re trying to produce with the solution. The best partners can understand what needs to be achieved, set expectations, and develop a plan of execution to get there. John says we ask people what they do because one of the goals of the podcast is to expose listeners working in technology today (perhaps in IT Operations) to different types of roles in our industry across customers, tech vendors, partners, or even system integrators. In Daniel’s case, we’re talking about a role at a large technology vendor focused on a large partner and the go-to-market partnership. Can we define go-to-market? Daniel says go-to-market is an execution path based on a channel. Daniel’s role working with partners is how the partner positions their offerings and solutions to end customers. As part of the ServiceNow team, he would work with the partner to position the overall solution to an end customer. Many technology vendors have 2 major routes to market, but some may only have 1 of these. Selling products / services directly to an end customer (called selling “direct”) Selling products / services through a partner The DNA or type of solution we’re talking about and the industry to which the solution will be sold (i.e., retail, government, etc.) will dictate what the route to market (or go-to-market) is for a company. Over the course of his career, Daniel has worked with large enterprises as well as state and local governments. The direct route to market usually means the company has field selling teams that work with end customers. This can coincide with partners who work hand in hand with these field teams. John says there are likely different go-to-market plans within a technology vendor for different types of partners but that these plans will need to be customized to a specific partner based on factors like industry expertise, the way they build relationships with customers, etc. Daniel says when it comes to global systems integrators as an example, there are normally dedicated teams to serve an industry who know the industry well (its nuances, the common themes and solutions, etc.). Daniel gives an example of the retail industry and some of the nuances around point of sale, visibility, onboarding employees and making them productive despite attrition, etc. Partners with industry expertise can share how they have solved problems within that industry and how they address the common themes and challenges within that industry. Nick says there is probably a specific way in which company leaders at technology vendors would identify only those partners it makes sense for them to work with based on specific solutions or industry expertise. Partners have to be qualified and identified before a joint go-to-market can be developed. Companies like ServiceNow have online tools to help end customers find partners with specific experience (i.e. capabilities, outcomes delivered, certifications, industries of focus, regional presence or focus). Check out the ServiceNow Partner Finder as an example. Daniel looks for partner success stories in which a partner accelerated or de-risked an outcome. Due diligence is required when building a solution for our customer (i.e. the right solution for the right people at the right time), and part of this is ensuring the right partner with the right expertise is involved. 15:59 – Tech Origin Story Daniel says he grew up in technology. His father was a programmer at Bell Labs and worked at also Sun Microsystems. Daniel remembers his first exposure to Linux being on a computer running Solaris. “I was just fascinated and enamored by technology. I started off as just a kid tinkering.” – Daniel Paluszek Daniel wanted a computer because he loved video games and obsessed over getting optimal performance. He tinkered with overclocking, for example, with a group of friends. Daniel’s first job was in high school, and he was doing computer repairs. Even though he might not know how to solve a problem, Daniel was determined to go figure it out, trying to eliminate variables along the path to a solution. After determining that he wanted to work in the technology field, Daniel signed up for the computer science program and the University of Central Florida (UCF) but would find that programming did not interest him as much as solving hardware and software issues. Daniel switched to studying Information Technology (IT) after a year in the computer science program and started working in the IT help desk for the university. While working at the help desk at UCF, Daniel remembers posting his resume for an internship program which was open to all computer science and IT students. He tells the story of getting a call about a defense contractor (Ensco) that needed an intern. They wanted someone who was interested in systems engineering and systems administration, but Daniel would have to start in the help desk. Daniel initially said he was not interested because of the focus on help desk. The person he spoke to said since this was a defense contractor, they could get him on some projects working with the US government, and that piqued his interest. After interviewing, Daniel received an offer that he accepted. This began as an internship that morphed into a part-time job while he finished his IT degree. Daniel remembers working on a defense contract for the Air Force after 1-2 years, and it was focused on Solaris administration. The experience from Daniel’s childhood on Solaris paid off here. Daniel also began working with VMware technology during this time (early 2000s) for server virtualization. The Solaris administration Daniel did was in a SCIF environment. Daniel feels like saying yes to this opportunity accelerated his exposure to a different type of technology environment
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